Family: Chaos Version
by hokkyokukou
Summary: The Ninth questions Reborn's sanity and thinks that making him babysit indefinitely will fix his bloodthirsty ways. Reborn is less than impressed. His first project? A five-year-old called Sawada Tsunayoshi who thinks there's no place in the world for him. Oh, god. This is so much harder than assassinations.
1. thrown headfirst

**Summary:** The Ninth questions Reborn's sanity and thinks that making him babysit indefinitely will fix his bloodthirsty ways. Reborn is less than impressed. His first project? A depressed five-year-old called Sawada Tsunayoshi who thinks there's no place in the world for him. Oh, god. This is so much harder than assassinations.

* * *

 **F:CV |** thrown headfirst

Reborn is a rather well-to-do hitman for the biggest, baddest mafia family there is in Italy. The number one hitman in the world, if he should say so himself. And he _would_ say so himself.

Reborn is the number one hitman in the world, and so he has no business looking after small brats.

And he tells this to his supervisor, the Ninth boss of Vongola.

"I have no business looking after small… humans," he says delicately so as not to compromise his very good salary. The Ninth gives him an unimpressed look, and he knows he didn't do a good enough job of disguising his displeasure.

"Well, Reborn, times are changing," the Ninth says in that wiser-than-thou way of his that always makes Reborn want to set fire to something. "Assassination requests are dwindling, our adversaries are quiet these days. And you need something to do during the interim. Don't be nervous; Dino-kun will visit you occasionally to help you out. It will be like having a family of your own."

 _If you want to play house, go play with that son of yours whom you've locked in the basement,_ Reborn wants to say.

The Ninth gives him a dangerous look.

"Can't this… 'something to do' be, ah… assassination?" he says instead.

"What did I just say?"

"There's no harm in reconfirming."

The Ninth sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose like he's getting a headache. What a joke. If anyone should be getting a headache, it is _Reborn._

"No, Reborn, no assassinations. In fact, your therapist—"

"My self-proclaimed therapist whom you hired on a whim," Reborn corrects loudly.

"—is concerned for your mental well-being and agrees that placing you in a position of care-giving and nurturing will do you good."

"And," Reborn says dryly, rapidly planning out one-hundred painful ways to kill that damned therapist, " _what_ good will that do me?"

The Ninth ignores him. "And very conveniently, Iemitsu's son happens to need babysitting for a few months, as I said before."

Seeing the look on Reborn's face, the Ninth bows his head very patiently and says frankly, "Reborn, I think it is time you take a break from killing and start _caring_. And I think children are the way to start."

Reborn smiles pleasantly at the Ninth, who returns in kind. Then, the smile drops from the Ninth's face, and he puts his foot down.

"You _will_ take this job."

* * *

With a sourness in his mouth that is reminiscent of the time he and Colonnello dared each other to eat five hundred lemons in six minutes, Reborn arrives at the daycare the Ninth directs him to. The building is small and a heinous shade of puce, with the letters _Sunshine Daycare_ tacked on in peeling yellow paint.

Reborn's nose wrinkles involuntarily.

With a pledge to burn this business, Reborn stalks up the steps and rings the doorbell.

He's greeted by the sight of two small children punching each other with venomous glee before they are rudely forced apart by a battered broom. Pity. He rather liked the violence. When he hears the clearing of a throat, Reborn looks up. An aging woman stands before him, broom in hand, looking at him as if he were the next troublemaker in line.

As if. Reborn doesn't cause trouble. He ends it before it begins.

"Hello," he greets politely. The old lady rakes her eyes over him apprehensively before jerking her head towards the back.

"You're the one the Ninth sent?"

"Apparently," he says through gritted teeth, though his voice is all pleasantness and daisies. He flows through the hall with the grace of a cat, side-stepping a puddle of what he can only assume to be vomit.

"I'm the matron," the lady introduces herself in a way that suggests awful murder should he try to address her otherwise. "This is my daycare."

" _Clearly_ ," Reborn answers dryly. "Any other ground-breaking information for me?"

The matron shoots him a look that says she'd like to beat him around the head with the broom.

"You're here for the kid, aren't you? We keep him with the rest. Makes him less susceptible to assassinations and the like. Nobody would suspect the son of CEDEF to be in a place like this, eh?"

Reborn gives her a pleasant smile.

"How old are you anyways? You look awful young to be taking care of a child."

"Twenty one."

"Well, I guess there've been younger," she broods. She makes him stop at the door to the room and so she can point out a boy with obscenely spiky hair—not that Reborn was one to talk—playing by himself in the corner. "That's him. He's been here for years, ever since his mother died."

"I thought this was a daycare, not an orphanage."

"It works as both. I used to get a lot of kids on the doorstep back when violence ruled the streets," the matron said. "I'd keep 'em overnight, and overnight extended to the weekend then the week, a month, a year, until they grew up and wanted to go on adventures. Iemitsu didn't have the guts or the time to look after his own kid and dumped him on me."

The small boy dropped a block on his foot. Reborn nodded approvingly when he didn't cry. He could work with this. If he tried really hard. _Really_ hard.

"He's a good kid. Quiet for a five-year-old, maybe, but good. The other children don't like him too much. Well, why don't you try interacting with him," the matron suggests, though it sounds more like a command. "His name is Sawada Tsunayoshi, although everyone around here calls him Tsuna."

When Reborn raises an incredulous eyebrow at her— _you want ME to talk to THAT—_ she clears her throat and peers at him in a way that would make cabbages wilt.

"Well," Reborn finally concedes. "There _is_ something that I must do before he is brought to my apartment. Tsuna, is it?" and the small boy snaps to attention, trundling over with his hand stuck in his mouth. That would have to change, and change _immediately._ "Come here."

He leads the small boy to the bathroom and ushers him inside.

"Poop," he orders the small boy very clearly. He frowns when the boy just goggles at him and points at the toilet with newfound vehemence. "You're going to poop, aren't you? You had better do it now and not get my apartment dirty later."

The boy blinks at him, nonplussed.

Before he can order the clearly mentally-challenged boy to _Poop!_ again, the matron swoops in and explains to him very sternly that that is _just not how children work._ When Reborn asks why, she throws her hands up in exasperation and asks him what mental institute he came from. Which is offending. Reborn is a genius and has his entire mental load in working order, _thank_ you very much. He looks down his nose at the matron, who gives him a surprisingly challenging glare in return, with her eyebrows pointing up and her hands on her hips. Not wanting to risk a messy affair with an old woman who no doubt has enough cats to turn him into the ragged couch he could see in the corner, he capitulates.

Nonetheless, despite her reservations, the matron finally hands over the ogling boy, who, to Reborn's immense distaste, immediately puts a saliva-covered hand into his. He suppresses a shudder and offers a smile, which sends the boy into a bawling fit.

What is _wrong_ with his smile?

How offensive.

The matron laughs at him and calms the small screaming machine down and then, like Reborn is an experiment he must repeat until he gets it right, the small boy toddles back over and reaches out a saliva and now snot-covered hand.

If Reborn doesn't get a pay-raise for this, there will be _blood._

Reborn tries again, this time without a smile. They manage to make it all the way to his car, hand-in-hand, upon which time Reborn discerns that the matron can no longer see them and releases the disgusting boy immediately. He shoos him into the car.

And they are able to go back to his apartment without any further incident.

Tsuna is sleeping by the time they arrive. Reborn stares at him for a full five minutes before deciding that shoving his hands under those tiny armpits, holding Tsuna at arm's length, and carrying him like this on the elevator is the safest, quietest, and most caring of approaches. He ignores the horrified looks he's given. They don't _understand_. Children are a health hazard, are catapults of vomit and pee just _waiting_ to fire. He dawdles for a few seconds in front of his door before grabbing Tsuna by the hair like he is an onion with a green sprout to take out his key and shove it in the door.

"There," he says, rather proudly, as he deposits the sleeping child on the couch. "Now that wasn't so bad."

He can do this. He can do this without killing anything. See, look at the kid. Sleeping so quietly, with his cheek bunched up like a dumpling. It's _almost_ cute.

But there's always a calm before the storm.

* * *

 _Should DEFINITELY not be writing this, but I have the worst writer's block ever such that I can't even write my internship poster, which is due next week. Also, first KHR story since 2013, wow?_

 _This is an AU (obviously) where most parents are dead, Reborn is twenty one, and Dino is fourteen. Say hello to chaos. And slow updates. Always slow updates._


	2. the first ripple

**F:CV |** the first ripple

Reborn's apartment is scantily decorated, and he likes it that way. He likes the white walls and the black curtains and the original da Vinci sketch hanging in the living room that he'd lifted from a museum on the way back from an assassination.

(You can't _really_ call yourself mafia if you'd never done a heist. And while the Ninth had pinned him down with a disapproving look, at least Reborn stole classy.)

So, Reborn can't really get mad since it had technically been _free_ , but it still stands that the heinous small human had gone and scribbled all over a priceless artifact.

He grabs the walking tragedy by the back of its neck and can hear it whimper like a dog as he puts its nose to the artwork and says in his best _you done bad_ voice, "Bad. This is incredibly expensive. Do you know that? Do you even understand what expensive means? Where did you even get crayons. Crayons have never existed under my roof."

Guiltily, the boy draws from his pockets a set of stubby crayons that he holds with a strange reverence, as if they are his only friends and he would die if Reborn tried to take them away. Reborn regards him for a second before thoughtfully handing him a large stag beetle.

The boy screams.

Reborn later has to explain very patiently to his frightened neighbor that no, nobody was being murdered and that yes, Reborn had legal custody over the weeping child rocking in the corner. With exasperation, he shuts the door and rounds on Tsuna, who quails under his expression.

"His name is Fred, and he will be your friend."

And with this, Reborn shoves the poor stag beetle into Tsuna's nest of hair and sits back to watch the show.

* * *

On retrospect, perhaps that wasn't the best way to introduce himself to Tsuna. He realizes rather belatedly that he'd told Tsuna the beetle's name before ever telling him his own. But the damage is done; after having very generously displayed to Tsuna an entire array of insect friends—in Tsuna's eyes, _fiends_ —Tsuna believes him to be Devil Ruler of the Insects and hides from him, which is all well and good with Reborn until the Ninth decides to pay a visit.

The look on his face tells Reborn that he is not amused.

With a gentleness that Reborn could never have, the Ninth scoops the small human up and bounces him around until he laughs. Reborn can feel his eye twitching as he fights the urge to defenestrate the couple for excessive rowdiness and public disturbance.

"Do you know his name?" the Ninth asks of Tsuna, who whimpers something along the lines of _King of Terror_. Reborn's lips curl into a smirk when the Ninth isn't looking.

It seems he's built a fine reputation.

The Ninth isn't half as amused. He coaxes Tsuna very kindly to call Reborn, 'Reborn.' Tsuna tries it out timidly, like Reborn will box his ears if he gets it wrong.

"Ree-bown."

Reborn twitches violently like he'd very much like to break the potted plant in the corner but refrains.

"Very good," the Ninth praises. "Now Reborn here is going to take care of you, you know that, right?"

Tsuna nods.

"He might seem scary at first, but he's really just a sad old man—"

"What," Reborn spits.

"—who needs a friend, just like you. Do you think you can be friends with a sad old man like Reborn?"

Had Reborn been a different human being entirely in a different dimension, he might have put on his best ' _I'm a poor, lonely man in need of a friend!'_ face, but as it stands, he is _Reborn_ , and he is _not amused._

"See look at his sad face," the Ninth tries to say to a blanching Tsuna. "Look how lonely he is."

Reborn very desperately wants to defenestrate _himself._

The Ninth mentions school before he leaves and lets Reborn know that he'll be visiting again in a while—when, he doesn't say because he wants to keep it a _surprise._ Reborn huffs at this, because it's clear the Ninth just wants to grab Reborn's life, turn it upside-down and inside out and shake out all the spare change.

He accepts it as it is, because that's what assassins do.

* * *

It's day five and Tsuna has gotten Fred to dance on the palm of his hand. It's endearing to watch, really, seeing the two get along so well. It reminds Reborn of his own partner, the chameleon that usually lurks along the brim of his hat. The reptile isn't around at the moment; Reborn can only assume it's off courting its brethren in the zoo or the like.

Fred lifts the legs on one side and then the other, and Tsuna giggles like it tickles him. And when Tsuna laughs, Fred head butts his thumb. It's cute, Reborn can admit. Never mind the fact that Tsuna has essentially no other friend in the house other than Fred the stag beetle.

It's not Reborn's fault. Reborn had been perfectly willing to teach Tsuna how to assemble, load, and shoot a gun all in under a minute, but the small human hadn't been interested. Pesky creature.

Reborn's been getting restless the past few days, favoring staying at home over venturing out into the open. He'd welcome an assassination attempt—of which there have been many over the course of his career—anything was better than this monotony of watching Tsuna watch Fred the stag beetle watch Tsuna.

Tsuna's not a hard child to take care of; he's not like those nasty horrors he sees other couples dealing with in shopping malls, nor is he, despite what Reborn likes to believe, incredibly stupid. He's actually astute for a five-year-old, able to pick up on situations with an intuition even some adults lacked. Like with Bianchi the other day, he knew to run away screaming instead of accepting the cake she'd brought him.

Though that may have just been common sense.

He might have a propensity for screaming and running, but at least he doesn't wet the couch or clog the toilet up or do anything worse than scribble on the walls occasionally. Which, in and of itself, is puzzling to Reborn. He's no psychiatrist, but there's something about the drawings that makes him look twice. Another person might have been perturbed, but Reborn has seen worse things than a scribbled out stick figure lying on top of something red from a five year old.

Namely, a five year old lying on top of something red that was really blood.

More specifically, a five year old _he'd_ killed lying in blood.

Reborn is the world's greatest assassin, and that title wasn't just there to look pretty.

He files the drawings away in a corner of his mind but thinks nothing of it. He just buys Tsuna a new set of crayons and a large sketchpad twice the size of the boy himself and tells him rather sternly that the walls are not his canvas and that he should play more with his new friend, Fred.

"Can't _we_ play?"

The question is so quiet and so timid. It's only because Reborn is trained in information collection that he hears it. He turns around, and Tsuna is tugging on his pant leg, downcast. Even his hair is drooping.

"Excuse me?"

Tsuna shrinks even more, if that's possible, and keeps his eyes on the ground.

"F-Fred is nice," he stutters. The stag beetle does a little jig on his shoulder at the accolade, and Reborn nods approvingly at the budding friendship. "But…"

"But?" Reborn echoes. Tsuna quails and releases Reborn's pants.

And then he smiles at him, which is all well and good, except Reborn knows that in the few days they've known each other, Tsuna has not smiled once.

But he has other things to do than entertain a five year old, so he gives him more crayons and ties a bow around Fred's horn and tries to send them away. But then Tsuna takes a deep breath and latches onto Reborn's leg.

Reborn peers down at him like he's inspecting a particularly interesting specimen of caterpillar.

"Can we go shopping? There aren't anymore vegetables left in the fridge."

And so there aren't, Reborn discovers. He hasn't bothered to eat in a while, and he realizes, almost guiltily, that this means Tsuna probably hasn't either. But he notes the half-eaten loaf of bread in the corner of the pantry and deigns to pat Tsuna on the head. So the kid can take care of himself, that's good.

"Very well," he says, picking up the car keys and fetching a leash for Fred the stag beetle. Tsuna shakes his head. "What's wrong now?"

"What if he gets stepped on?" Tsuna says very practically.

Beetles don't have facial expressions, but Reborn can feel Fred pinning him down with a very accusatory glare.

* * *

"Your son is cute."

The cashier is new and young and glowing with youth and sadly oblivious to the fact that she was talking to _Reborn_. Of course, if you aren't part of the mafia world, into which category the majority of the population falls, you'd never know.

It's just her way of starting conversation, of building connections with the customers so that they'll be inclined to return again. She doesn't notice the dark expression growing on the man's face or the way his small son looks at her with terrified eyes. Next in line is a bundle of celery, which she picks up cheerfully and puts on the scanner.

"He's not my son," the man replies rather stiffly.

She's a little embarrassed but has gotten into hairier situations. She navigates her way smoothly out.

Or tries to, at least.

"Oh, my mistake. You two just seem to have such a good relationship. Are you brothers? Relatives? Or—or," she falters under the man's undisguised glare. "Maybe… just friends?"

The combination of his heated gaze and his smoking hot looks was a little too much for her, and she found her hand grappling with the collar of her uniform. She wishes he wouldn't stare so intensely.

"Why are you not scanning?" he asks her frostily. She jumps and hastily swipes the next item.

It could be worse, she tells herself. She could have accused the man of being a pedophile and have called the cops on him. She did that just last week.

With an exasperated curve in his back, Reborn snatches the groceries and twirls the keys on his fingers. He nods to Tsuna to pick up the pace, but the boy is dragging his feet.

"What _now_ ," Reborn says, and though he maintains his cool, he can't help but let a tendril of exasperation weave into his voice. He wants to say _we bought your carrots and your celery and every other vegetable under the sun and I have been very patient with you, small child,_ but he doesn't. But Tsuna hears it all in his tone, and his eyes are shining with a strange light now, and for that, Reborn's suddenly feeling a little—

A little what?

A little _sorry_?

The greatest hitman in the world doesn't feel _apologetic_.

Before Reborn can even begin to understand his feelings, Tsuna grabs a few shopping bags out of his hand and is promptly pulled to his knees by their weight.

"I'll carry it," Reborn says, reaching out a hand. "They're too heavy for you."

Tsuna shakes his head and gets to his feet. Reborn can see his knees quivering and wonders just _why_ the small human is pushing himself so hard. He's lucky they were inside, otherwise he'd no doubt be sporting two bleeding knees.

They're neatly skinned, though; Reborn can see white blotches.

With a sigh, he shifts all the bags to one arm and scoops up a screeching Tsuna in the other.

"Hold _still_ ," he orders, jouncing Tsuna a little. "And for the love of god, don't _drop_ the apples."

Tsuna holds the apple bag like a lifeline, wide-eyed and tight lipped so far off the ground—or perhaps his nerves were birthed from a combination of shock and fear—shock that _Reborn_ is carrying him and fear that he will somehow anger him.

Reborn wants to quell Tsuna's trepidation, but he can't think of a way to do it. Smiles always seemed to work with his clients— _targets—_ but Reborn's mind is cast back to the first day he met Tsuna and how one glance at the purported disarming smirk sent him into a fit. Unknowingly, he starts bouncing Tsuna on his arm. Maybe the kid wasn't all wrong in his reaction. Maybe he sensed the implications behind that smile, the way it had been used so many times right before a murder, all the blood behind it…

Maybe Tsuna had seen all the insincerity behind the curve of Reborn's lips and had been frightened by it.

Belatedly, he realizes he is bouncing Tsuna _far_ too hard, because the poor boy, tight-lipped and white-faced, is being tossed into the sky at this point like a beach ball. Reborn catches him deftly and sets him down but doesn't think to check Tsuna's condition because there's something far more pressing on his mind.

"Do I frighten you?" he asks him flatly. Tsuna seems petrified by the question and could almost pass off as a statue with the way he freezes in his shoes.

Reborn doesn't know what he is feeling, but it is something akin to the feeling he gets whenever Shamal is being super annoying and Reborn fails to shoot him through the head.

Something like disappointment?

* * *

Tsuna knows his existence isn't in any way a boon to Reborn. It's why he forced himself to befriend Fred, the initially terrifying stag beetle, who turned out to be quite a pleasant companion, to live off bread and slightly stale vegetables until it was no longer sustainable, to never complain or ask for things. His one slip up was his scribbles on Reborn's wall—for which he truly is sorry. He just couldn't help it. The apartment had been _so_ dark, and darkness is—

Tsuna curls up tighter on the couch. He can't hear Reborn breathing in the next room, but he knows he's there and is sleeping. It's a small comfort, but not much.

Not in the dark.

But he'll be quiet. He'll be good. Reborn is kind to him, albeit a little neglecting and forgetful of his existence. But Tsuna's grateful and he prays to a god he doesn't know that he'll be able to stay here. Please, let him stay here. He'll play with Fred and tread lightly, so—

Shh, shh. He has to stay quiet now.

He can't wake Reborn.

* * *

 _Thanks to everyone who fav/followed/reviewed! Much appreciated :) If it's not too much trouble, tell me what you think about the story so far; would make my day._


	3. cold lights

**F:CV |** cold lights

Tsuna is goggling at him with eyes so large he could balance teacups on them. Reborn gives him a dry look as he crosses his legs on the floor, two inches away from Tsuna and with a sketchbook and crayons splayed out before them.

"Let's draw," he says. It's not a suggestion.

Tsuna lunges for the crayons like it's the only thing keeping Reborn from throwing him out the window.

He soon forgets that Reborn is even across from him. He's sprawled on his belly, a fistful of crayons in one hand, a blue one clenched in the other. There's a sky being filled in and the blue bleeds into the yellow of the sun.

"Is that somewhere you know?" Reborn says idly. Tsuna shrieks and drags the crayon across the page, leaving a dark, ugly mark. Reborn's eyebrows raise, and Tsuna's fingers push together in embarrassment.

"I-It's… I-I'm drawing another place."

 _Well, yes_ , Reborn wants to say snidely, but he refrains and waits patiently.

"M-Matron took me there on weekends when the d-daycare was closed or when she was on vacation."

There's a black crayon in Tsuna's hand, and he's scraping it across the page, outlining a squat building with prison-like windows, Reborn notes dryly.

"What's that?"

"Orphanage. Last month, Matron was away, and she dropped me off here."

Tsuna populates what Reborn guesses is the playground with stick figures and continues on to draw a swing set and a slide.

"Did you like it there?"

The crayon stops, drawing Reborn's gaze to Tsuna's face. It's oddly blank. Tsuna goes back to coloring in the grass with the messy strokes of a child.

"I had a friend there," he says presently. He pauses and reconsiders. "Well, I think we were friends. He wasn't very nice to me."

 _If he wasn't nice, how was he your friend?_ Reborn muses.

There's a mission coming up, thank the heavens. The Ninth, despite insisting that peaceful times are approaching, is running short on men, and there's a family on the other side of Japan that needs to be _dealt_ with. Reborn can already feel adrenaline coursing through his veins. He watches Tsuna pick up a red crayon and start to fill in a few scraggly flowers and realizes that he should probably find somewhere for the boy to stay while he's out.

Which has very conveniently been provided by the small human himself. Reborn had back-up plans, one being the house of a man and his baseball-fanatic son, but he gets the feeling Tsuna would rather be around people he's familiar with than thrown into an arena on the other side of which is a very hyper, trigger-happy, baseball-throwing monster.

"Would you like to go see your friend?"

Reborn thought Tsuna would jump on the opportunity with bright eyes, but unexpectedly, Tsuna hesitates.

"Are you going somewhere?" he asks quietly. Reborn blinks and regards Tsuna through evaluative eyes.

"For a while, yes. But I'll be back soon."

When Tsuna doesn't say anything, Reborn says lightly, "I have to make money sometime, you know. Can't just sit around the apartment all day watching you draw pictures."

He wonders if he's said something wrong, and maybe he has; he knows it himself that he hasn't been paying much attention to Tsuna—who doesn't need much attention anyways. Reborn spends most of his day sleeping or disappearing to the houses of whoever cares to invite him, and Tsuna passes it playing with Fred or eating raw vegetables or drawing pictures or—

Or.

What else does he do?

Maybe spending time with his friend at this orphanage would be good for Tsuna. Yes, Reborn decides, it is high time that Tsuna goes out and plays with someone of his own age instead of—his nose wrinkles—keeping this _poor old, lonely man_ company.

"I'll be away a weekend; I don't know exactly when yet. So I'll drop you off there, and you can spend time with your friend. Won't that be nice?"

It doesn't escape his notice that Tsuna looks down before greeting Reborn's gaze with a wide smile. But he doesn't try to make anything of it, just returns the smile with one of his own.

"I'm hungry," he says suddenly, boggling Tsuna so hard that the poor boy is left with his mouth open. "I'm feeling like some sushi. What do you think?"

The boy stares at him like he's grown a second head, and he mentally notes that he should probably eat more if it shocks others _this_ much when he decides to dine. He takes hold of Tsuna's shoulder and herds him out the door, all the way down to his favorite sushi restaurant in town:

TakeSushi.

* * *

"Welcome!" the familiar greeting reaches their ears as Reborn bows into the restaurant, whose doorframe is just a little too low for his liking. Tsuna toddles in with no problem, of course, goggling and gasping like he's never been a restaurant before.

Reborn casts him a glance, a subtle voice in his mind wondering whether that's not so far-fetched an idea.

"Ah, Reborn! You here for the usual—or not," Tsuyoshi, the owner, amends as he sees little Tsuna trundling at Reborn's side.

"Before you ask: He's not my son," Reborn says as he takes a seat at the bar. He sighs and gets off again so that he can pick Tsuna up, who's been struggling to climb to the bar, and plop him down on the adjacent seat. As he sits again, Tsuyoshi passes him a glass of water.

Reborn's eyebrow raises.

"There's a kid next to you," Tsuyoshi says with a mischievous grin. "No alcohol for you."

Tsuna looks sorry, so Reborn downs the entire glass in one go. "I wasn't feeling alcohol anyways," he lies. "Where's the baseball horror?"

"Takeshi? He should be home from baseball any minute now."

Tsuyoshi busies himself with what he knows Reborn wants to order. The restaurant is in its odd, in-between hours, only a few customers sitting in the back near the muted windows. It's a nice atmosphere. The smell of fish isn't overwhelming like in other sushi bars, the sunlight isn't too bright, and it's not too loud until Yamamoto Takeshi, the baseball terror, bursts in through the door and chucks a baseball at his father's head.

"Catch, dad, catch!"

With reflexes of a trained fighter, Tsuyoshi snaps up the ball in the palm of his rice-covered hand. Reborn _hopes_ he doesn't go back to making his sushi with that dirty palm. The baseball horror bounds up to the bar, laughing like he's vomiting sunshine from his mouth, and nearly knocks Reborn's glass over.

"How was that, dad? Coach says I'm pitching faster now!"

Takeshi, Reborn notes, is missing several front teeth. He secretly hopes it's because someone socked that sunshine-infused face right in the kisser.

But it's probably just baby teeth. Reborn glances at Tsuna, wondering with a shudder if he'll be forced to play the role of the tooth fairy once teeth start dropping out of Tsuna's mouth. He can just imagine the Ninth forcing him into a fairy costume, all pink and frilly, and dancing around the room, showering money on the small human.

It makes him want to shoot something.

"Oh, hey, old man!" Takeshi hollers once he notices the dark cloud gathering above Reborn's head. Reborn offers him a stiff smile and draws his water cup closer to his body before a disaster can happen. To his chagrin, Takeshi leaps onto the seat beside him so that he's sandwiched between two mentally stunted brats.

Takeshi leans forward so he can see around Reborn. "Who's this? Hi, I'm Yamamoto Takeshi!"

He thrusts his hand across the bar, right where Reborn's water cup had been. Tsuna nervously pinches it between a finger and thumb and stammers, "I-I'm Sawada Tsunayoshi. You can call me Tsuna."

Yamamoto gives him a grin so bright that it blasts Reborn's soul to smithereens.

"That's cool! Hey, you wanna play catch? I'm really good at throwing!"

"Not inside, Takeshi," Tsuyoshi admonishes. "And wash your hands. Here you go, Reborn."

The sushi is a small comfort in this hole of chaos. Don't get him wrong; Reborn loves chaos, but there's something distinctly different between the chaos of a fight and the chaos wrought by little children who have too much energy for their own good. The first roll is already in his mouth when he realizes that Tsuyoshi had _not_ washed his hands after catching Takeshi's dirty little baseball.

He swallows it with an acrid expression because assassins should not be petty.

* * *

"So how's parenthood going for you?" Tsuyoshi asks after he's fed all three of them and as Yamamoto runs in circles around Tsuna outside.

Reborn scoffs. "It's not parenthood. It's… extended babysitting."

"How long has he been in your care?"

"Six days," Reborn answers. His eyes trail after Tsuna, whose rather measly body can't keep up with Takeshi.

"He looks more like his mother."

"A good thing, that is," Reborn breathes. If Tsuna had looked anything like his good-for-nothing father, Reborn might have made a punching bag out of his face. Tsuyoshi laughs like he knows what Reborn is thinking—and he probably does. The man's sharp, unlike his dreadful son who only knows how to laugh and shout and _throw things_.

"…Tell your son that if he tries to throw another ball of mud at me, I will give him a haircut he'll _remember,"_ Reborn says icily as the aforementioned mud ball slides down the wall, having missed his face by an inch a moment before.

"Hear that, Takeshi?" Tsuyoshi hollers. "Reborn here'll give you a haircut if you hit him with the mud!"

"Wow, really?" shouts Takeshi excitably. "Gee, thanks, old man! I've been needing a haircut for a while!"

Reborn wants to bury himself ten feet under the ground.

"Lighten up, friend," Tsuyoshi laughs, clapping Reborn on the shoulder. "It's good to have a little fun now and then, especially with an occupation like yours—"

"My occupation is assassin," Reborn says. "Fun is not written in the description. Unless you have fun killing. Which can be enjoyable at times."

Tsuyoshi sighs and shakes his head a little.

"And that's why the Ninth put you on standby."

Reborn gives him a level gaze that Tsuyoshi returns in kind. The shop owner folds and stands from the ledge on which they sit.

"I think one day you'll understand what I mean," Tsuyoshi says. "You'll understand and then you'll see things differently. Maybe you'll even quit—like me."

"You ran away from chaos," Reborn says. "Ran away with your wife, and when she died and left you with a brat—"

"Reborn," Tsuyoshi says warningly.

"—you put up your sword and vowed never to fight again so long as your son was there, everyone knows that. And you enjoyed your life afterwards, away from the fighting, away from the blood. But Tsuyoshi, we're different, you and I. Blood's the only thing I know. It's why I'm hailed as the greatest assassin in the world, and why you are the owner of a sushi restaurant."

Reborn stands, casting a shadow that was too dark for Tsuyoshi's liking.

"You all think I can be changed, and because of that, I was thrown headfirst into a pit with a child I want nothing to do with. But I can't be changed. I won't be changed. You'll see that."

Tsuyoshi watches Tsuna run over at Reborn's call. The boy is happy, but the joy drains from his face as he sees the assassin's expression. He wishes he could do something for the boy—for _Reborn_. But what can he do? When a person refuses to change, they've set up a wall so high it can't be scaled.

"You should feed Tsuna more," he calls after Reborn as they leave. "He ate like he hadn't eaten in days."

Reborn raises a hand airily.

* * *

Reborn shuts himself in his room as soon as they're home, and Tsuna is left to do whatever he wants. He doesn't take advantage of this freedom; there's not much to do anyways. He checks the fridge, even though he's full, and takes stock of the supplies. There's a wilting head of cabbage in one corner of the fridge, a tomato in the other, and a bundle of celery that he still hasn't broken into. He wishes he'd had the forethought to buy a jar of peanut butter and some raisins. Food dioramas were always fun to make and fun to eat.

"Hi, Fred," Tsuna says to the stag beetle that has lighted on to his shoulder. "Do you want to go out onto the balcony?"

Fred nods his agreement, and Tsuna struggles with the door until it pops open. The wind hits his face, a fresh breath that Tsuna takes in. The sun is beginning to set, barring the sky with violets and pinks, and he wishes he could share it with someone.

But Reborn is in his room, so Tsuna shares it with Fred.

Wish though as he might, the sun sinks below the horizon, and the air slowly grows cold. The stars are lit, one by one, like candles in the dark. But they're cruel lights, too far away to hold and with no warmth at all.

Reborn, too, had been watching the sunset, his figure cutting a dark silhouette against the window. The sun bleeding into the sky, staining it that ruby red that Reborn had grown to so like; the stars flickering into sight; he'd seen this so many times that he wondered, occasionally, why he even bothered to watch it at all.

It was all the same red, the same orange, the same pink and purple, the same sky and stars, the same moon.

Why would anyone want to watch such a dull thing?

He wonders if there's maybe something he's missing, something that makes the sunset steal your breath no matter how many times you see it.

Still, he stands there at the window, watching as the stars are lit one by one, like lanterns in the dark. But they're cruel lights, he thinks, glittering so freely in the sky where they're too far away to catch and don't even think to share the slightest bit of heat.

* * *

 _Parallels are amongst my favorite things to write. Tsuna thinks stars are cruel: they're beautiful and alluring and seem to lead the way in the dark, but he'll never reach them. And even if he goes against the odds and does, he thinks they'll have nothing for him; no warmth or anything that he dreams of. For Reborn, stars are cruel: they hold a warmth he dreams of, but he'll never reach them no matter how hard he might try, and they won't share that warmth of their own accord._

 _Anyhow, hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading!_


	4. grey world

**F:CV |** grey world

Reborn doesn't even have to step out of the place between wake and dreams to know that Namimori has _changed_.

It's in the way the birds sing their greetings, the way the cars sputter down the highway, the way the sun is too frightened to peep out from behind the clouds. It's so boringly _obvious_ that Reborn doesn't want to wake up. New assassins are in town, but if their presence tilts the balance this much, they are probably nothing worth noting.

The very best come and leave without stirring a single leaf.

It's disappointing, to say the least. This new threat won't even be worth toying with.

Tsuna is up already when Reborn emerges from his room, towel wrapped haphazardly around his waist. He notes vaguely that Tsuna looks rather tired, but thinks nothing of it as the boy scribbles enthusiastically in his near-filled sketchbook. Today he draws a boy—or is it a girl? Reborn can't tell—with silver hair and green eyes and a rather sleazy-looking man who looks far too similar to a sleazy doctor Reborn doesn't want to waste brain power thinking about.

He can't stand the thought of spending another day listening to the scritch-scratch of crayons on paper, so he showers quickly and hauls Tsuna out the door.

From the grey sky, light rain patters against the windshield. Reborn switches on the radio for thirty seconds, long enough to hear about the bombing of an orphanage—Sheen On Orphanage, he thinks it is—a good hundred miles away, before snapping it off again.

They end up in front of the Yamamoto residence, and the rain has just let up when they leave the car.

Tsuyoshi seems rather surprised to see them ducking into the restaurant during off hours, but he doesn't say a word. Silently, he hands Reborn a glass of water and turns on the stove just as Takeshi grabs Tsuna and drags him outside.

"Tsuna seems old enough to be attending school," Tsuyoshi comments. He's waiting for the water to come to a boil so that he can make the miso soup he knows Reborn likes.

"Does he?" Reborn says, barely interested as he fans himself lazily. It's hot outside, so hot they can see the pavement steaming as the two boys gallivant about.

"Isn't he seven? Eight? About Takeshi's age?"

"He's five," Reborn returns flatly.

Tsuyoshi gives him a look that reeks of the word _liar_. Why would he lie about something so trivial? Reborn can't be bothered to see something out of the ordinary in the very ordinary human.

Maybe there's something about being a dad that lends a sixth sense.

"I'll ask the Ninth about it," Reborn says, making plans to do nothing of the sort because he would rather shoot himself in the foot than drive the small human to school every day. "Maybe there's something he forgot to tell me. He mentioned something about school the last time he came. Maybe I can get the kid enrolled right after summer break ends—when _does_ summer break end?"

"In a month," Tsuyoshi supplies. He ladles out a bowl of soup, little squares of bean curd tumbling to the bottom. Reborn languidly lifts the spoon and watches the soup dribble out like rain leaking from a gutter.

"A storm's brewing," Tsuyoshi comments casually, even though the clouds are being blown away.

So even Tsuyoshi has noticed the unrest of the city.

"A storm is brewing," Reborn echoes. "There's a family on the other side of Japan that needs to be taught a lesson. They're stirring up trouble so violently that the waves are carrying all the way over into even a peaceful town like Namimori…"

"Which harbors quite a few un-peaceful things itself, if you'd ever care to explore," Tsuyoshi says. Reborn isn't interested in being lectured by the man for shutting himself up in his apartment all the time. He knows that Namimori is not so idyllic as its inhabitants make it out to be. So he gives a derisive _harrumph_ -ing sort of noise and devotes attention to his soup.

"Takeshi! Tsuna!" Tsuyoshi calls. "Come inside and have something to drink! I don't want to pay for your hospital bills if you get heat stroke."

"Aw, dad," Takeshi hollers back. "There's plenty of water out here."

Tsuyoshi clears his throat in a way that makes Takeshi grab Tsuna by the back of his shirt and tug him inside for a gulp of ginger-infused water. Then they're back out, playing assassin.

Tsuna's excellent at hiding and at being terrified. But Takeshi finds him in under a minute and saws his hand across Tsuna's throat.

"He's a natural born assassin," Reborn almost praises. But there's no smile on Tsuyoshi's face as he pulls a fish out from the fridge.

"I just pray he doesn't become one."

And Tsuyoshi turns around, knife in hand, to make the first cut into flesh.

* * *

They're out of sight of the restaurant when it happens.

Tsuna bites back a whimper. His knee is clutched between his hands, blood dribbling over and into the cracks between his fingers, and little pieces of gravel jut rudely in his flesh. Face pale, Yamamoto tries to convince Tsuna to hobble back to the restaurant, but he refuses.

"You want me to get dad or old man Reborn, then?" Yamamoto asks.

"No!"

Tsuna winces at the bewildered expression on Yamamoto's face and elaborates quietly, "No. D-Don't bother Reborn-san o-or your dad."

Yamamoto's perplexed. "Bother? I don't think it'll be a bother. Just wait here, and I'll get them—"

Yamamoto nearly trips because Tsuna's grabbed the end of his sleeve and dragged him down. There's a pleading light in his eyes that doesn't make any sense. Tsuna's _bleeding._ He needs _help._ Even Yamamoto's no fool enough to keep playing baseball after he gets beaned in the head.

"We can play assassins after dad bandages you up," he tries to convince Tsuna. "I've gotten plenty of scraped knees and they haven't stopped me from running around."

"T-That's not what I'm worried about."

"Then what? Nobody's gonna yell at you for falling down."

Tsuna shakes his head. How odd. Yamamoto waggles his eyebrows, trying to think of what's keeping Tsuna from getting his knee treated, which is _bleeding a whole lot, wow!_

And then—

Oh.

Yamamoto squats down to look Tsuna in the eyes. They're a pretty shade, like the inch of honey at the bottom of the bottle that's been forgotten for far too long. He gives him his best smile, the kind he knows blows old man Reborn's soul to smithereens.

"Old man Reborn isn't gonna hate you for getting a bloody knee."

And there it is—that flinch, the frantic denial, the small tears gathering in the corner of those neglected eyes. Yamamoto reaches out and rubs his hand all in Tsuna's hair.

"Actually, I think if you ask him for more things, he'd like it. He's a lonely old man, after all, you know," Yamamoto says, drawing a nervous laugh from Tsuna. "Same with my dad. He really likes you. I do, too. So don't worry about it. You're not bothering anybody."

And that's that. Yamamoto has had enough of Tsuna's quiet steps, for today anyways. A grin surfaces, and he hauls the boy on his back, laughing at his shrieks, and sprints all the way home.

* * *

"Did you win the fight?" Reborn asks, and the look in his eyes is almost approving as he gazes on the blood dribbling all down Tsuna's leg and into Takeshi's shirt. As Takeshi drops Tsuna from the piggy-back, Tsuyoshi hastily moves forward and says, "No fighting, Takeshi, Tsuna!" before either of them can get the wrong idea.

Especially Tsuna.

Tsuyoshi has a feeling Tsuna would do anything to get approval from Reborn.

And fighting is a path the boy is _definitely_ not cut out for, no matter how impressed it might make Reborn.

"No fight, pops!" Takeshi chirps while his father gets out the first aid kid and a few bottles of disinfectant. "Tsuna just fell down. Oh. And then I guess he bled on me."

Takeshi holds out his arms as he stares at the blood on his shirt wonderingly, his father already binding up Tsuna's knee. He plucks at his shirt, looks thoughtful, and then starts stripping.

He pauses.

"Well, that wasn't there before."

Takeshi gives a confused laugh before he quite literally falls over. Tsuna is all but forgotten as Tsuyoshi leaps up, shouting Takeshi's name, and pushes Reborn out of the way, who had rather interestedly stood to peer at the gash in Takeshi's side.

"Who—how? You said there was no fight!"

"You should be quick about it. It might be poisoned," Reborn counsels, sounding a little delighted by the prospect.

Takeshi turns a little paler at this thought.

"You mean like in video games? Where the poisoned guy turns green and then gets a skull and crossbones next to his name when he dies? Am I going to have a skull and crossbones next to my name? Am I going to turn green, dad, am I?"

Reborn smiles and says, "Perhaps."

Takeshi looks a little green already.

"Shush!" Tsuyoshi orders, throwing Reborn a despairing look. He doesn't appreciate how Reborn is turning this chaotic situation into entertainment. Friend though he may be, Tsuyoshi's not reluctant at all to throw a few silencing punches. Tsuna, in the meanwhile, has brought over the first aid kit—which Tsuyoshi hopes will be enough. He quickly cleans Takeshi's wound, breathing a sigh of relief when he sees it's not all that deep.

"Are you sure you don't know where this came from?"

Takeshi only shakes his head, wincing when Tsuyoshi starts binding him up.

"It didn't even hurt, not till I saw it. Tsuna, you didn't see anything, did you?"

Tsuna looks distraught at not being able to provide an answer. But what's done is done, and his son's life is in no danger, so Tsuyoshi shuts the first aid kit with a sigh and hugs his son and Tsuna both.

"Don't go too far from the house," he warns them. "Stay in sight. And stay together. There's strength in numbers."

"Geez, dad, you're talking like we're at war or something," Takeshi says easily. Having recovered from the shock, he's sitting up now with a grin on his face and no worries at all. "I bet Tsuna's shoe just rubbed against my ribs the wrong way, and that's how this all happened. But it's alright, I feel great now!"

Takeshi jumps to his feet spiritedly, leaving his father to sigh and wonderingly mull over his son's resiliency. But once he and Tsuna are out of sight, Tsuyoshi turns to Reborn, who's looking at him expectantly.

"That was the work of an assassin, not a shoe," Tsuyoshi says rather heatedly. "It was a cut made by something sharp. Why is an assassin targeting my son?"

"Or targeting Tsuna," Reborn adds. "Or even just having some fun terrorizing the citizens of Namimori. Can't rule that out. You told me earlier, Tsuyoshi, that a storm is brewing. And I guess it's finally reached Namimori. If you're worried you can't protect your son, I can—"

"I can protect Takeshi just fine," Tsuyoshi cuts in. He hates this attitude of Reborn's. From anyone else, this offer would be a welcome gesture, just a display of caring, but from Reborn—from Reborn it's just a subtle act of condescension. Though Reborn rarely shows it, Tsuyoshi knows the hitman looks down on him for putting away his blade.

Tsuyoshi knows it all stems from the way Reborn was thrown headfirst into the mafia's bloodbath without any sort of mentor or guidance, knows that Reborn doesn't know how to act any other way, but he can't help but, at this moment, hold it against him.

Reborn holds up his hands in concession. "Alright. But I would equip your kitchen with things other than fileting knives, if I were you. Well, I don't want to bother you during restaurant hours. It's time I take the small human and—"

And finally, all the compounded stress makes Tsuyoshi snap.

"Tsuna," he says sharply. Reborn tilts his head like a lion that's been confronted by an ant. "I've never once heard you say his name. What kind of impression do you think it leaves on Tsuna? That his name isn't worth mentioning, that he isn't important enough?"

Reborn speaks very delicately, but there's a blade behind his voice.

"I shall call him as I please."

And for the second time that week, Tsuyoshi calls after Reborn as he walks away with a careless hand thrown in farewell.

"You know what I really meant," Tsuyoshi says. "Don't call us humans in a way that excludes you. I know what you think about yourself, Reborn. But it's wrong."

The man is walking away, his hands shoved into his pockets, a solitary curve in his back.

"You're not as bad as you cut yourself out to be. You're human, just like the rest of us."

* * *

Reborn dreams that night, dreams of beautiful white flowers bobbing in a field of emerald and skies of the deepest blue. It's so breathtaking, so out of place in his red-blotted life, that it brings an ache in his chest he hasn't known ever in his waking hours. He doesn't want to wake, but he does, he has to, and when his eyes open, the skies are raining properly without a sun that wavers insecurely between life and death.

The world is grey.

He vaguely notes that he's running out of toothpaste as he squeezes some out. His mouth fills with the taste of peppermint so weak it's not even worth mentioning. He passes by Tsuna's sketchbook as he meanders the halls. The silver-haired boy from yesterday has been colored in to have rather blotchy, red skin. A skin disease, perhaps? That might explain the sleazy doctor in the corner. But the sleazy doctor Reborn knows only treats girls.

So it's a silver-haired girl from now on.

Reborn wonders if the sleazy doctor Tsuna drew is just a figment of his imagination or if the small human has actually had the bad luck of running into the greasy-haired bastard.

It doesn't matter at any rate. Tsuna's sleeping when Reborn sees that the last vegetable in the fridge is a wilted carrot, and he's still sleeping when Reborn returns from the store in an hour with a bag of fresh vegetables and a four-pack of ramen. A few hours later, they're at the Takeshi residence. Tsuna runs around as best as he can, Fred riding on his shoulder, to collect dirty napkins from tables with still-warm chairs. Reborn himself just sits idly, swiping sushi from the bar. Tsuyoshi doesn't say anything, but Reborn can feel eyes on him as he stares at the grey windows. Tsuyoshi pours him an extra drink of sake.

A few seconds later, the glass is empty.

Rain falls and a scent of wet dirt crawls in through the window. It reaches the wrong corners of Reborn's mind, and it all begins to remind him vaguely of—

There's a tug on his elbow, and he twists to see Takeshi, the honey-eyed boy who's too bright for him to handle on a day as grey as today. He turns back around, eyes closed, ears half-listening to the question Takeshi poses.

 _Old man Reborn, are you sad about something?_

And just like that—

The world goes as quiet as it is grey.

He hates children. He hates them so much. Hates their carefree days, hates the way their world is colored outside of the lines. A boy who hasn't a care in the world like Takeshi doesn't have any place in Reborn's life. Sad? Him? He's the world's strongest assassin. The _strongest_ assassin.

 _Don't mock him like this._

 _Don't show him how easily you color your world when he fights to the death to see just a few splatters of red._

Tsuyoshi steps between Takeshi and Reborn and shoves another glass of sake into the hitman's hand.

"Drink."

* * *

Tsuyoshi sends them home with a basket of sashimi and an invitation to Takeshi's first baseball game of the summer season, which is in four days.

"Please, please, _please_ , it'll be so cool, and I'll hit a homerun, and you can catch the ball, Tsuna, and oh _boy_ , old man, can't you come and watch?"

The way Takeshi hadn't let up even after Reborn had pinned him down with his most withering glare baffled the assassin. But he didn't see the harm in going, and though he wasn't looking forward to the heat that was bound to curl around Namimori, _the look on Tsuna's face when he'd agreed was like a slice of the blue sky—_

He tells that voice to shut up, so it withers away like a neglected seedling.

There's a man in a black suit waiting outside the door when they reach home. Reborn pushes Tsuna inside and shuts the door tightly.

"Cumin," he greets. "It's been a while."

"Indeed," Cumin replies. He shifts his weight, and Reborn reads him just like that. Discomfort. Unease. Trepidation. He even reeks of fear. It couldn't be clearer that Cumin wants to flee the premises as soon as he can. Reborn terrifies him.

Reborn's lip curls imperceptibly.

Before Cumin opens his mouth a second time, Reborn says, "Tell Iemitsu his small human is doing fine."

He rather likes terrifying Cumin, and he shows it by producing his gun from thin air and twirling it between his fingers. "And tell him if he tries to set even a single foot in my home, that foot will no longer be attached to his body."

"Which is why he sent me," Cumin says stiffly.

"Don't be ridiculous. He's not afraid of losing a couple limbs to me. The real reason he sent you is that he's petrified at the prospect of seeing the son he abandoned and is postponing it for as long as possible. And I hate cowards. You know that."

The way Cumin's shoulders are squaring almost makes Reborn laugh. Fear and hate. Two forces that always rule humans. Cumin hates Reborn, but his fear keeps him from punching Reborn in the face as he so wishes to do.

This is no longer entertaining.

Reborn hates cowards.

"What do you want, Cumin."

Cumin struggles to glower at Reborn, like he's afraid his eyes will be gouged out. "The Ciro Family has moved south. They seem to have a few men in Namimori who are looking for something. The Ninth wants you to—"

" _Iemitsu_ ," Reborn corrects. "Iemitsu wants me to. Do tell him not to protect himself by using the Ninth's name. You and I both know he doesn't work for him, and dealing with liars is not on my agenda. I've had enough of you," he says bluntly. "All the things you're about to tell me are child's play. Leave."

Cumin bows, not out of respect, but out of fear that Reborn will shoot him between the eyes if he doesn't, and disappears. At least the man is good at vanishing.

When he's inside, Reborn throws a pack of ramen in a pot to accompany the sushi Tsuyoshi packed. He even pulls out two bowls from the dust-covered cupboards. But the water isn't even boiling yet when he shuts himself in his room.

Tsuna eats alone because Reborn forgets.

* * *

Yamamoto's dad expresses the same goofiness Yamamoto has, a silly attitude that belies sharp intuition that takes people by surprise. He feeds Tsuna too much, hugs him too much, smiles at him too much, and ruffles his hair too much, but it all fills Tsuna with a strange sensation foreign to him up until now.

Tsuna thinks it's a good feeling. It reminds him of dandelions basking in golden light.

He loves the sushi and he loves how Yamamoto always involves him in his games. He loves Yamamoto's bright smile and how easily he washes away all the dark shadows hovering around the edges of Tsuna's consciousness. He loves how Yamamoto's dad reins them all in, even Reborn, as uncontrollable as he is.

He thinks maybe this is what it's like to have a father, what it's like to have a brother. Two brothers, really, he amends in retrospect. Though Reborn may be his guardian, he's no fatherly figure, and Tsuna sees the way Tsuyoshi looks after Reborn like Matron looked after the kids at daycare. And Matron had always called them all her sons and daughters.

The window is open, and the summer breeze winds lazily around the room. Fred butts his finger as Tsuna gazes out over the horizon, which is flushed with all sorts of pinks and purples that bring a smile to Tsuna's face.

"I like you, Fred," he says quietly. Fred dances. "I like you. I like Yamamoto-kun. I like Yamamoto-kun's house, and I like helping them during service hours. I like Yamamoto-kun's dad. And—And even though—well, I like R-Reborn-san, too. Yeah," he says, nodding to himself. "I like Reborn-san. H-He's not nice like Yamamoto-kun's dad, and I think he h-hates me a little, but he's—I think he's a good person."

Tsuna hiccups, which is apparently so alarming that Fred tries hugging Tsuna's thumb with his spindly little legs.

"Fred," Tsuna says quietly, and his voice is choked up like he's trying to hold something back, "I don't ever want to leave. I really like it here. Yamamoto-kun always plays with me even though he's busy with baseball, and his dad is always nice to me and it feels like a family when we all eat together and—and—"

When Reborn emerges from his room for a glass of water, the night is speckled with stars, and he finds Tsuna curled up next to the window with Fred nestled in his hair. Reborn reaches out a finger, nudging Fred, who awakens with a sleepy wave of his legs and crawls into Reborn's hand.

Very gently, without jostling Tsuna much, Reborn scoops the boy up and carries him to the couch. As he lays him down, he sees streaks across his face, like the small human had cried itself to sleep. Reborn pulls a thin blanket over Tsuna and sets Fred close to Tsuna's head, watching as the stag beetle burrows into Tsuna's messy hair.

He does that for a while.

Watches.

Standing in the night with his back to the stars, the assassin called Reborn just watches the human called Sawada Tsunayoshi.

And then, even though he knows Tsuna won't hear him, he says, "I don't hate you."

He vanishes like a shadow swallowed by the dark.

* * *

 _Bit of a longer chapter than usual, hope nobody minds lol. Set up a LOT of things here, plot-wise, events-wise, emotions-wise. I had to prep a presentation for my internship this week, so sorry for late update/missed replies to reviews._

 _Thanks to everyone supporting this story! It means a whole lot to me. If you have any feedback-comments on what's missing (because I feel like there is something lacking in my writing, and I just can't figure it out right now) or just what you think about the story in general-please let me know!_

 _Thanks for reading!_


	5. cold summer wind

**F:CV |** cold summer wind

The first baseball game is a disaster.

Faithful to his code, Reborn shows up in a black suit and his orange-striped fedora and plops himself down in the front row, Tsuyoshi on one side and Tsuna on the other. The boy is absolutely bouncing with excitement, face alight with life Reborn didn't know he'd had, hand greasy from a hotdog he'd just gobbled not two minutes ago, and his brown hair bobbing in the wind.

It is sunny, and it is hot, and Reborn is in a suit and the ice in his drink has melted far too quickly for him to gain anything from it.

"I told you not to wear a suit," Tsuyoshi shouts above the crowd's cheers when the players come out.

"I always wear a suit," Reborn returns. But Tsuyoshi isn't listening; Takeshi has just run out onto the field, and the man is on his feet, roaring.

"MY SON IS NUMBER ONE!" he screams. "DADDY IS SO PROUD OF YOU, MY SON!"

Takeshi looks briefly embarrassed, but he raises a small hand and grins in acknowledgement before heading out to the pitching mound.

"It's just eight-year-olds playing baseball," Reborn mutters. "How is there such a huge crowd? Why is everyone so excited? People are so _sweaty._ "

"It's not _just_ eight-year-olds playing baseball," Tsuyoshi says.

A whistle blows, and the game begins.

"No," Reborn says rather disinterestedly, "it is what it is: eight-year-olds playing—"

And then Takeshi _throws_.

"…How does the batting boy still have his head?" Reborn asks after a brief pause. "How remarkable."

"Strike one!"

"That's my son," Tsuyoshi says to the woman sitting beside him. She looks a little affronted with the way he leans over and shouts it in her face. "Did you see that? That's my son! Isn't he just the cutest?"

"Cute is a questionable choice of word," Reborn mutters as the umpire calls the second strike. "For the batting boy, I'd say _terrifying_ is more suitable."

But the batting boy is gritting his teeth and twirling his bat. Takeshi hikes his arm up and shoots the ball forward—

 _Crack!_

The batting boy is off and running, kicking up dust behind him. Unfortunately for him, he'd sent the ball right back at Takeshi, who'd caught it easily and is now sprinting for first base.

"Wouldn't it make more sense to just pitch it to the baseman?" Reborn points out blandly, but it doesn't matter at any rate; Takeshi somehow manages to tag the runner with the ball. There's a grin on his face, one of the ones that would have shredded Reborn's soul had he any of it left under the blistering sun. For now, it just makes him feel more desiccated than a 100-year-old prune.

"Pass me a bottle of water," he says rather haggardly.

Not a word out of his mouth has been heard. Tsuna is on his feet, jumping up and down. Tsuyoshi is on his feet, jumping up and down.

"Children, the both of them," Reborn says with a stifled groan, regretting having seated himself between the two star-struck baboons.

There are two more outs and the players are changing positions when Reborn's had enough. He sheds his black blazer, and loosens his tie. The pitcher's just thrown his first ball when Reborn turns back to the game, and to his delight—

The batter is hit in the head and falls to the ground.

"Now, _that's_ what I'm talking about," Reborn says, satisfied. He pops the first button on his shirt, tugs his tie down, feeling sweat trickle. Tsuna latches onto his arm, shaking it a little as he squeaks, "Is he gonna die? Is the batter gonna die?"

"No," Reborn assures him dryly. Then he adds, "Unfortunately."

The eight year old is taken off the field on a stretcher, and the next batter runs up. It's Takeshi, who looks like he's eager to take vengeance for his friend. That's a good look, Reborn thinks with a smirk.

"Strike one!"

"COME ON, TAKESHI!" Tsuyoshi roars obscenely loudly. The rest of the crowd rises to its feet, shouting obscenities and cursing and cheering. It's like a gladiator battle, Reborn thinks amusedly to himself. Pitting two eight-year-old boys against each other—humans are odd.

"Strike two!"

"Your boy isn't gonna get this one, Tsuyoshi," a man behind them bellows. "My son's gonna get the best of him, just you wait and see! And then you can't charge me double at your damned restaurant anymore, you filthy son of a—"

"What's that?" Tsuyoshi shouts back. "What's that, you son of a donkey? When my son's finished with your son, you'll be having to pay triple the money!"

"My, my," Reborn says, ducking as a fist swings over his head towards Tsuyoshi. "All this for a baseball game. Sit down," he tells Tsuna, who's staring, open mouthed, at the two fathers grappling with each other. "Stupidity is contagious. You'll be infected if you watch."

Nevertheless, he's rather pleased to see a tooth flying and Tsuyoshi emerging from the fight with a bloodied fist.

But the battle on the field demands attention as well. The game gears up and the crowd seethes with impatience.

The eight-year-old pitcher winds up and hurls the ball at Takeshi—

There's a crack of the bat, and the ball has disappeared—

Reborn reacts before anyone can blink; his hand is the only thing between the ball and Tsuna's nose, and there's a hole in the chain-linked fence just in front of them.

"And _that_ ," Reborn can appreciate, finally taking off his tie completely and draping it over Tsuna's head, "is how you bat a ball."

And then, with everyone watching, he very thoughtfully takes hold of Tsuna's hand and places the ball in it.

"There," he says as Tsuna gapes at him like a fish out of water. "Now you've caught the ball. Just as the baseball terror wanted."

The smile that blossoms on Tsuna's face is like golden sunlight that floods Reborn's grey world.

It almost takes his breath away.

* * *

Takeshi is sporting a black eye by the time they head back, having engaged in a tough scuffle in the outfield when the ball came between him and the opposing team. Reborn wouldn't lie; he'd called his fair share of goading commentary, some of which entailed encouragements to _bite the little donkey, bite him!_

In his defense, the heat had skewed his judgment.

While Takeshi is getting treated by his father, Tsuna holds his glove reverently, like it's the sword of a noble knight who's just slain a dragon.

Reborn gives Takeshi an appraising look before clapping him on the shoulder and saying, "Not bad, Yamamoto Takeshi."

Takeshi's eyes grow to the size of saucers, but the growing grin on his face is as unstoppable as the rising sun.

Tsuyoshi has a grin of his own when they reach the restaurant, a money-grubbing grin that only spreads when he sees the line at the doors. They're all people who'd been at the baseball game, some with their sons, sporting expressions of victory and defeat.

"It's not just eight-year-olds playing baseball, I see," he says, and Tsuyoshi cackles madly, ushering everyone inside.

"Do you mind staying?" Tsuyoshi asks. "I'll need a little help with so many customers."

Reborn's still sticky and sweaty, but he steps inside because assassins should know how to adapt.

That's what he tells himself anyways when he can't wipe the smile off his face.

Tsuyoshi hands him, Takeshi, and Tsuna a waiter's apron each and sends them off with little notepads and pens, which Reborn discards. He's the world's best assassin. Taking orders is a walk in the park.

He comes across the man whose boy had pitched for Takeshi and gives him a well-seasoned smile. After the family of three makes their orders, he clears his throat and very delicately says:

"Don't forget: Triple the price."

The man groans and lets his face fall into a hand.

* * *

It's been a week when it occurs to Reborn that he hasn't popped the news to Tsuna yet.

"I've registered you for school," Reborn says as the coffee machine gurgles away faithfully. "You'll start when summer break ends. Kindergarten."

Tsuna looks as surprised as Fred looks hungry, and Fred is always hungry. He's a growing stag beetle after all. And Tsuna is a growing boy, Reborn adds as an afterthought. Rather large for a five-year old.

Tsuna looks like he wants to say something, but he swallows it down. And that's the end of the matter. Reborn takes out some pancake mix—he hears it's Takeshi's favorite—and makes three pancakes, cooked to perfection.

"You can go to school with the baseball terror. You'd like that, wouldn't you? You two are inseparable these days."

And they are. The week has worked wonders for Tsuna—and Takeshi. Tsuna's skin glows with healthiness, and Takeshi is absolutely tickled pink at being able to foster a summer friendship that isn't half made up of baseball rivalry.

All in all, everything is going smoothly, and it is all thanks to Reborn and his genius idea of taking Tsuna to the Yamamoto residence.

"When are you going on your trip?"

"Soon, I expect," Reborn says. "Would you rather stay with the Yamamoto's?"

Tsuna shakes his head.

"I haven't seen my friend in a while," he says quietly.

"The girl in your sketchbook?"

Perplexed, Tsuna goggles up at Reborn, who sighs and elaborates.

"The one with the silver hair and green eyes."

"He's not a girl," Tsuna says nervously. "He's a boy."

"As evidenced by the way you refer to him with the male pronoun. My mistake," Reborn says. "And what about that sleazy—the other man you draw with him. How do you know him?"

Tsuna shrugs, digging his fork into his breakfast.

"He's the one who brought Gokudera-kun there."

"Fascinating," Reborn says as he watches Tsuna with a keen eye. "That lecherous doctor cares enough about a boy to bring him to an orphanage?"

"What's lech-lecher-leech?"

Reborn smiles blandly and pats Tsuna on the head so hard that the boy's nose almost takes a dip in the pancake.

"Never you mind."

* * *

The _DADDY LOVES YOU_ on all their omurices written in thick ketchup is hard to miss.

Reborn likes to smear it into oblivion right in front of Tsuyoshi and smirk when the older man weeps, though Tsuyoshi gets some satisfaction when Tsuna acts like the omelet is a gift from god.

As it is a tradition to eat omurice on the days of games, it's become almost a tradition now for Reborn to sit himself between Tsuna and Tsuyoshi. He tells himself it's for the small human's own good, that having a barrier between the man and the boy will act as a dam, preventing Tsuyoshi from infecting Tsuna with the Stupid Disease.

Of course, it doesn't work. When Tsuyoshi yells, Tsuna shrieks and hops up and down. He even gets Fred to jump along with him with a great clap of his heavy wings. Stupidity is infectious.

And when you're being attacked by Stupid on all sides, there's not much you can do.

That's what Reborn tells himself anyways when he catches himself getting too caught up in the game.

He counts three games, three incredibly busy nights of service, three sleepovers, before he notices—

"Huh," Tsuyoshi catches Reborn saying. "Was the sky always this blue?"

The rice nearly falls from his hands as Tsuyoshi guffaws and looks up. The sushi between Reborn's chopsticks has stopped halfway to his mouth, and Reborn is staring out the barred window.

An unrestrained smile spreads across Tsuyoshi's face as he answers, "Yes, the sky has always been this blue."

And very quietly, Reborn says, "I never knew."

And that's the end of that. Reborn goes back to his sushi, and the summer breeze knocks on the door of TakeSushi until Tsuyoshi throws the door wide open. With a courteous bow, in traipses the scent of freshly mown grass carrying a hint of the lavender their neighbor has recently begun to grow, and it all warms Tsuyoshi to the very depths of his heart.

It makes him want to live forever. With Reborn, Tsuna, and his son, he doesn't think he'd ever want anything more. During these summer days, in this heat daze, to continue on just like this…

He doesn't think there would be anything better in this world.

* * *

It's the evening after a long night of service. Tsuna and Reborn are upstairs in the guest bathroom, showering and brushing their teeth, and Takeshi and Tsuyoshi are cleaning the guest bedroom that hasn't been used in years. Takeshi holds a bat and his father wields a broom, and between them, they get most of the work done.

"Old man Reborn has been coming over an awful lot, don't you think, dad?"

Takeshi says this as he narrowly misses a precious porcelain vase with his bat. Tsuyoshi grabs the object and places it high out of reach. It won't do to have Takeshi destroy everything his mother left behind for him.

"Do you not like old man Reborn?"

Takeshi grins and manages to smash the vase anyways, dragging a sigh from Tsuyoshi's lips as he prepares the dustbin.

"Nah, he's pretty cool! Kind of dark and mysterious, though. You know, he's always got this gloomy look. I bet he's not drinking enough milk and that's why he's grumpy all the time. Do you think that's it? Maybe if you cook the rice with milk instead of water—"

"I'm sure old man Reborn would have both our heads if we did that," Tsuyoshi says. He groans as he stands up from gathering the broken shards. His body isn't what it used to be.

"I like Tsuna a lot, though! He's kind of clumsy, but he picks up napkins pretty well."

Tsuyoshi decides not to tell his son that he'd be hard-pressed to find a person who screws up collecting dirty napkins because the absolute pride Takeshi harbors for his friend is something too precious to destroy.

"And he's _really_ nice! The other day some kids were about to step on this _huge_ beetle, and then Tsuna dives in screaming and saves the thing! I mean, I guess it was Fred, and if I had a cool stag beetle friend like Fred, I would be screaming to save it, too. But isn't it super cool that Tsuna can be friends with bugs? Like, you've gotta be pretty amazing to be friends with _bugs_! I never thought too much about bug lives, but I guess I wouldn't like it if a gigantic cockroach came and squished _me._ Hey, dad, do you think that's what happened to old man Reborn? A bug came and squashed his parents or something like that, and now he goes around with that gloomy expression all the time?"

Tsuyoshi reminds Takeshi that his bat is swinging too close to the window before saying, "I don't think that's quite what happened to Reborn."

His son is adamant on this idea and doesn't let go of it for a while. Tsuyoshi busies himself as Takeshi babbles on. It makes him smile to hear his voice. It's like a burbling creek, the kind that splashes on your feet after you've trodden a thousand miles.

He loves his son. Loves the way a single smile washes all his worries away like a rain shower.

Suddenly it's quiet. Tsuyoshi looks up and sees his son chewing his lip, like something's bothering him. He doesn't ask. It'll come out on its own. Those honey brown eyes have a light in them that makes Tsuyoshi a little sad, because it tells him that his son is growing up too fast.

"Hey, dad," Takeshi says. "Do you think old man Reborn's okay?"

The question startles him even though it shouldn't. It's coming from his son, after all. Takeshi, the boy who's blamed for not having a care in the world when he cares for everything in the world, the boy Reborn hates and envies.

Yes, he knows Reborn better than the hitman will ever admit. He knows Reborn's jealous of children with their rainbow-infused worlds, knows he hasn't the faintest clue what to do with Tsuna, the boy in his care, which is why day after day they find their way over to the Yamamoto residence. It's an unhealthy dependency, but Tsuyoshi is willing to foster it until Reborn is able to make it on his own.

Which is a funny thing to think about. It's like Tsuyoshi's raising three children; two real children and one adult who doesn't know how to use his hands for anything but killing.

Tsuyoshi sets aside his broom and dustbin and takes his son to the porch, where they sit and enjoy a glass of water under the moon.

"Do you know why Reborn comes here so often these days?"

Takeshi looks down for a bit.

"It's because of Tsuna, isn't it?"

Tsuyoshi nods. "It's because of Tsuna. Tsuna's not Reborn's kid, you know. Reborn sort of—adopted him recently, and he doesn't really know what to do with him. It's like when you held a baseball bat for the first time. It wasn't all _swish, bam, ping_ right away. It took time to get used to. And that's what Reborn needs. Time. And a little guidance. A lot of guidance. A lot of _subtle_ guidance, because Reborn will never take direct lessons. And you know what? Tsuna needs time and guidance, too."

Takeshi giggles a little, and Tsuyoshi knows he doesn't quite understand everything. But there will come a time when he does.

"Hey, dad, guess what," Takeshi says.

"What?"

"You're the _best_ dad in the world."

"I know," Tsuyoshi says. "And guess what? You're the _best_ son in the world."

"Mind if I join you elderly men?" says Reborn from behind.

Takeshi jumps to his feet, paying no heed to the water glass that sprays across the floor, and tackles Reborn, who quickly assumes the position of a wretched tree accosted by a determined woodcutter.

"Old man Reborn," Takeshi says, and Reborn can _feel_ the happiness bubbling inside the small body. "Thanks for bringing Tsuna here."

And then he's off without another word, shouting as he bounds up the stairs. They hear a loud thud, presumably Takeshi landing on top of Tsuna, and a spattering of laughter.

Tsuyoshi doesn't miss the smile that flickers across Reborn's countenance. He holds up a bottle he produces from underneath a floorboard and invites Reborn to drink.

"It's a fine night," he says, pouring Reborn a small cup.

"Quite," Reborn agrees. With his legs crossed and his grey yukata slung a little carelessly around his waist, he takes a sip, eyes fixed on the moon.

"How's parenthood?" Tsuyoshi asks with a twinkle in his eye.

"Extended babysitting," Reborn corrects for the second time that month. He holds his sake dish up for a second serving, and Tsuyoshi obliges. They drink in silence, listening to the cicadas and the muffled voices from upstairs.

"It's not bad."

It's quiet, it's quick, but Reborn has said it all the same. Tsuyoshi breaks into a chuckle, raising his cup in Reborn's direction.

"We were blessed with two kids who aren't that bad," Tsuyoshi says. "We ended up with a good roll of dice. We could have gotten two terrible monsters."

"I don't know how I would have handled that," Reborn says darkly. "Probably with my gun."

Tsuyoshi laughs.

"I used to ask myself that question back when Takeshi's mother had just passed away. 'How will I handle this? How can I raise him on my own? How can I be a good father to him such that he won't miss his mother?' Those were dark days," Tsuyoshi chuckled. "Darker than the ones when I was still an assassin. But he showed me."

"Who?"

"Takeshi."

"Your son showed you," Reborn says flatly. "Your son showed you how to handle being a parent."

Tsuyoshi grinned at him. "Yep. It was all in the little things, the ones that made him smile. When I saw him smile, I would think to myself that everything would be okay. So long as he could keep on smiling, I thought I was doing alright. That's how I survived eight years. No matter what it took, what sacrifices I had to make, as long as he could smile, it was worth it. Seeing him run around as he does, seeing him becoming friends with Tsuna, seeing him growing up—it's all been worth it. And now, there's so much to look forward to."

Tsuyoshi nodded to the sky, where the moon hung lazily in its bed of stars.

"I think to myself: there will come a time, many years in the future, where Takeshi and I can sit like this on a warm summer night, sharing sake under the moon."

"A humble aspiration."

"And I wouldn't switch it out for anything in the world. So, you, too," he says. "Follow the smiles."

And those are the last words Tsuyoshi ever says to Reborn.

Tsuyoshi heads out before dinnertime the next day to restock on supplies. While Tsuna and Takeshi entertain themselves in the corner, Reborn dozes off. When he wakes up, it's dark, and there's no sound in the restaurant other than the sullen sound of a ball hitting the wall.

On retrospect, maybe Reborn should have seen it coming. Though the ripe June sun had promised them a sweltering day, the breeze had clawed its way into his bones with a strange chill. But even so, it should have been like any other day. The monotonous life in Namimori had promised him so. Coaxed him into believing that maybe a life with two brats and an old man could be possible.

Tricked him.

"Dad's been out for an awful long time," Takeshi says demurely when he sees that Reborn has woken up. There's no sun shining from his face anymore, no soul-melting smile. No blues or any other color, really. Reborn stands on sleeping feet and asks Takeshi for the time.

Eleven p.m.

He's at the door already when something tackles his leg and restrains him. The small human. Reborn's tempted to kick him away.

"W-Where are you g-going?"

He sounds scared.

Terrified.

"I'll be back," he reassures him dismissively. "I'm just going to go get Tsuyoshi."

"You know where he is?" Takeshi asks.

"No," Reborn replies honestly.

"Shouldn't we call the p-police, then?"

Takeshi looks petrified at the prospect of getting the police involved. But there would be no calling for help. The wind whips at him, tearing the doorknob from his hands and sending a shiver running through the marrow of his bones. No, police would not be able to help in such matters.

Absentmindedly, he turns back to the two small children, who have drawn close to each other in the wake of this cold summer wind. Reborn realizes they're subconsciously waiting for him to say something, some sort of consolation or reassurance. He balks. Thinks. What would Tsuyoshi say?

"You are doing well," Reborn says stiffly, and he places two cold hands on the tops of their heads. "There's no reason to be afraid. Everything will be alright."

His eye discerns subtle relaxation, but they still resemble turtles that have almost been run over. The wind is pulling at him. There's no more time to waste.

His heartbeat tells him that there's a high probability that Tsuyoshi may be dea—

The wind roars at them through the open door like it's the mouth of a monster. Tsuna whimpers.

And Reborn realizes that leaving the two of them alone would be like tossing bones to the dogs.

"You'll probably be safer if you come along with me," Reborn says, though every fiber of his being wants them to stay here, out of the way. "Just stay out of my way, don't scream or cry. Agreed?"

They nod wordlessly and trundle after him like ducklings, and together, they're swallowed up by the summer night.

* * *

 _Apologies for the absence; was traveling all last week. Thanks to everyone supporting the story! Means a lot to me. School's approaching, and it makes me want to crawl under the covers and sob till the world ends._


	6. footsteps

**F:CV |** footsteps

The sound of footsteps.

They crashed through the night. Wherever he might turn, they were there. Incessantly, brutally, they inundated his senses and drove them to the ground.

Light had long since evaporated with the sun. There he was, stumbling alone without a single sign to guide him. There he was, ten years old and with nothing but a stolen gun standing between him and the rest of the world.

There he ran.

If there was one thing he'd learned from his father, who'd been shot between the eyes in broad daylight, it was that you couldn't run from the Mafia. No, once you had dipped even a toe over to the wrong side of the line, the mafia dogged you like your own shadow. Worse, because even without a light, it was there. It was darkness.

The mafia was the night.

He stopped. There he stood. He couldn't run. He should have branded those words— _you can't run—_ in his mind the day his mother died to bring him into this world. Reborn was no fool, so he stood still in the night.

The sound of footsteps was no longer.

In their absence was an abyss. And then he realized that the only one hounding his own steps was—

Himself.

In this night, his fears had one genesis, and only one: himself.

Hesitation banished, he raised the gun and shot his stalker straight through the right eye and watched the man hired to kill him fall to the ground. A clean shot. A painless death. An easy kill. One no one would expect from a boy of ten years.

And then.

A year later, he was like a deadly poison spreading throughout the underground network. They whispered his name in the shadows of the night and hid from him when he walked the streets—him, the eleven-year-old monster who was as intelligent as a forty-year-old and as skilled as a seasoned hitman. A freelance assassin at the time, he held no ties to any particular family and serviced only the richest. It was a lucrative business.

Albeit a lonely one.

Reborn thinks it was around then that he met Tsuyoshi, a fellow freelancer whose face looked like a tree's trunk. What had previously been lines of compassion had been sliced open and healed as knotted scars of dogged resolution. Unforeseen was their meeting, which occurred in a dark restaurant across a slab of granite. They locked eyes for a good while, gauging intentions and motives, before settling into a hairy silence accompanied only by the clinking of silverware.

Tsuyoshi knew Reborn's name. And though Tsuyoshi was less known, more of a quiet force in the mafia, Reborn knew his. It was no secret to either of them that one could be an assassin and the other a target.

But that night, they coexisted peacefully.

As peacefully as assassins could, at any rate.

* * *

There was a sort of beauty to the mafia, Reborn used to think. You couldn't run away from it, but to reciprocate, the mafia would never run from you. No matter how monstrous you were born or molded yourself to be, there was always a little niche somewhere in the darkness, waiting with open arms.

He remembered his first job with a vivid clarity; he wondered if it were the same for everyone. The target was a journalist who had been poking her nose too far into the mafia's business. Take her out, leave no trace, and get paid.

Clean, quick, easy.

It should have been, anyways. But she had been a fighter, extremely wary and borderline paranoid, and refused to sleep without a knife under her pillow. In the end, Reborn had to scrape the plaster from the walls to get rid of his blood. There was nothing clean or quick about it. He had been ten. Nobody could expect him to get his first mission perfect.

At least the money transaction had been easy.

He took out heroin addicts and cops, judges and bosses. Journalists, doctors, lawyers, laymen. Under orders of family A, he'd take out member E of family B, and then he'd turn right around and wipe out family A, hired under family B. Nobody knew what to call him; he held no alliances, was as aloof as the wind, and certainly didn't give a damn about any job he took.

Until.

They'd never told him the details of the assassination. One day, he just received a pleasantly hefty amount of cash in the mail accompanied by an address and a promise of double the pay after 'annihilation of every soul under the roof.' It was painfully easy to bypass the security system—you'd think that being a millionaire would prompt you to install something more than a couple of pit bulls wearing spiked collars—and into the house. His choice of weapon was a knife—quiet, though not clean, but part of the request was adamant that he 'make it art.'

Blood could be art.

He'd learned that over the past two years.

Husband and wife lay in gold sheets, red blossoming from their necks like peonies wrapped in sun-blazed wheat. Job done, Reborn turned to leave—

And then.

He saw them.

Two wide eyes glowing at him from the darkness of the doorway. Young and confused. Wondering.

"Are you the new butler?"

The girl's voice wobbled, unsure, but not entirely wary. She must not have reached the age yet where she distrusted the world.

He couldn't say anything. There Reborn stood, between the child and her parents, blood still dripping from the sliver of metal in his hand.

 _Every soul._

 _Make it art._

"I—" His tongue was dry. "I am."

Discreetly, he hid the knife behind his back and made to move forward. But his step faltered when he saw, by light of the moon, the child break into a smile.

"That's good. Mommy and daddy are always looking so tired these days, and Elaine thinks it's good you came along to help!"

He was never any good at smiling, but he tried one on.

"Is that your name? Elaine?"

The girl nodded. Her smile danced with the moon.

"How old are you?"

"Five! Oops!" she said, clapping her hands over her mouth. "Mommy and daddy are sleeping. Elaine shouldn't be loud."

"Yes," Reborn said, and his voice was hollower than a tree that had been rotting for a hundred years. "Your parents are sleeping. I'll—I…

"I'll help you get into bed."

 _Every soul._

Her smile blossomed further, and she held her arms up to Reborn so he could pick her up. He did it gently, with a smile cut into his face, one arm under her legs, and the other— _the one with the knife_ —at her back.

Abruptly, he slipped it through her ribs and into her heart. He felt her convulse as he pulled the blade out.

 _Stone. Be stone. He was stone._

Reborn shouldn't have looked at her when he laid her down between her parents, but he did anyways. She wasn't dead yet; there was still light in her eyes, confused and betrayed; blood dribbled from her mouth; spasms ran through her tiny body. And he couldn't look away until the last of her life had escaped through her child's lips.

 _Make it art._

When he left them, they were sleeping in a bed of golden wheat. The father and mother lay facing each other, with their child in between. They all held hands, and if it weren't for their wounds, they might have just fallen asleep during a family picnic. Yes, the gold covers were wheat, and the blood was flower petals.

And the blood-inscribed _GOOD NIGHT_ above the dead family was just...

…all for the sake of art…

It was all over the news the next day. No matter where Reborn turned, it was plastered in his face.

 _BRUTAL MURDER OF PHILANTHROPIST FAMILY_

 _NO SOUL LEFT ALIVE_

 _MURDERER LEAVES MOCKING MESSAGE AT SCENE_

Mocking?

Mocking message?

He stared at the TV screen before turning around and continuing his walk down the street. His steps echoed the word _—mocking—_ at a slower and slower rate, until he found himself standing in the middle of an empty intersection.

The sun was bright; it was burning away his already blandly colored world.

That wasn't right. It wasn't right. Reborn wanted to tell them that it wasn't right. He'd wanted to say good night to that little girl. To Elaine. Wanted to tell her 'good night' and put her underneath the covers. He hadn't wanted to kill her. Put the knife in her heart. He'd wanted to say good night. Good night. Writing it on the wall for her, that had been the only way he could say it. It wasn't mocking them. All he—he'd only wanted to—who would believe him—

After that, he didn't take just any assassination request. He took those that demanded the deaths of the strongest. He courted death. He slipped through its fingers like water, turned the tides, defeated the odds. Reborn went up against the top assassins and came out alive. Him, a fourteen-year-old boy who'd emerged in the night barely three years ago.

They knew what to call him now.

The Strongest Hitman.

"She's called Luce," Tsuyoshi said one day over a cup of coffee. They'd been seeing a lot of each other lately, working for similar employers— _ones that didn't indiscriminately kill—_ and travelling to similar places. "She's wanted to meet you for a very long time."

"Not interested," Reborn said dismissively. "Romance is for writers and lunatics."

"No," Tsuyoshi said, torn between being amused and exasperated. "She's not interested in you like _that_. Good god, she's a grown woman, and you're a little boy—"

Reborn shot him a nasty look.

"—A-and she's married. Look, s-she has a husband and everything, Reborn. I mentioned you to her a few weeks ago, and she's been bugging me ever since to let her meet you."

"Is it an assassination request?"

Tsuyoshi's face fell as he listened to the words coming from this fourteen-year-old's mouth.

"No. Not everyone wants to talk to you about killing people."

With an expression of deep concentration, Reborn cleaned his gun. He held it up to the light for inspection.

"Like you, I guess."

A grin cracked onto Tsuyoshi's face, and it was like rain spattering on dry, cracked earth.

Reborn met this Luce, and Tsuyoshi met a woman. Luce introduced Reborn to a group of misfits who were like him—young, flayed, and thrust into the night headfirst. The woman—Kimi—introduced Tsuyoshi to a life of fresh rain and cherry blossoms. The motley of broken children warily accepted Reborn into its ranks, gradually embracing him, albeit with thrown fists and broken teeth, into their dark corner of the world. Tsuyoshi's new life tore him away from the night to flood his life, momentarily, in the warmest, golden sun.

It felt like Tsuyoshi had left him, and perhaps that was why he hadn't bothered to attend the wedding. The invitation lay at the bottom of his drawer while Lal and Colonnello both hounded him for being so irrevocably rude.

 _He brought you here,_ they said. _He took you—took us all—to Luce and wrenched us from the hell we would have otherwise rotted in._

He didn't listen to them.

By wedding day, the son was already five months old. And he was only five months old when an assassin came and took out Tsuyoshi's wife. The fool, instead of seeking revenge, put up the sword and vowed never to fight again so long as his son still breathed.

Tsuyoshi moved to Japan. Reborn stayed in Italy, right in the heart of organized crime. He built his reputation sky-high and took out bosses, drug rings, weapon smugglers, and assassins. Tsuyoshi built a restaurant and raised his son. Reborn began to loosely associate himself with the Vongola, one of Italy's strongest mafia families, because they at least never asked him to murder children. Tsuyoshi joined his son's baseball fanclub and cheered for him even when he missed the ball by miles.

Following a miserable mission that ended with Colonnello in a coma and with Luce dead, Reborn was sent to Japan, right to the boring town of Namimori. Quietly, he rented out the most expensive apartment he could find—the top floor of a grey building with horrendous yellow curtains—kicked his feet up and waited for the missions. They trickled in slowly, irregularly. He was lucky to get two in a month. He hated it. He hated twiddling his thumbs, waiting for orders, so he slept.

And when he began to tire of sleeping, he went to TakeSushi.

When Tsuyoshi first laid eyes on him, it was like the man was looking at a rock that had sprouted spindly legs and arrived on his doorstep. He guffawed and he blinked, and Reborn had half a mind to slap him around the head. Then, with an uncertain shrug of his shoulders, Tsuyoshi swept open the door and invited him inside.

The first thing Reborn saw was a hurricane of crayons in the center of the restaurant. Tsuyoshi cleared his throat, and a small boy with tanned skin and honey-brown eyes emerged from the storm.

"This is—this is Takeshi," Tsuyoshi said, and his voice was unsteady, like he was a little nervous to be showing his son to Reborn. Like he knew Reborn, though he would never admit it, had felt betrayed when he'd left with his son.

"Takeshi, this is Reborn—an old—" he almost choked on his words, then said very stoutly, steadily, "an old friend."

 _Friend._

Takeshi's face crinkled up in a smile that was lacking in teeth.

"Hello! Weebown! Hi!"

Reborn didn't say anything, just stared at the boy for a little bit, feeling nothing.

More often than not, he found himself wandering over to that side of town, where the rain fell fresh and the sun shone bright. Around that time, the Vongola had begun to be busy, and he was being called into Italy for assassinations and information lifting. Each time, even though he'd never say he was leaving, Tsuyoshi would track him down and hand him a bento. And each time he returned, it was with a clean box and a small souvenir. A bullet from Naples. A spiked baseball. Brass knuckles. His version of child-friendly gifts.

Because assassins should repay their debts.

* * *

One year. Two. Then three. They were the only people he bothered to talk to in Namimori. They were the only people in Namimori who bothered to notice him. Leave food at his door. Invite him to baseball matches (though he never attended). Let him stay long after hours and drink miso soup and sake while the moon peeped through the barred windows.

He called Takeshi the baseball terror. Takeshi seemed ecstatic about the name; his father, equally enthusiastic. It was fine. It was all fine. He didn't get too close to them; they didn't pry into his life. He would visit once a week.

Until.

The Ninth put him on standby and thrust a child into his lap.

Clueless, and admittedly bewildered by the lack of assignments, Reborn did less than he should have for the child. He never bought him a bed or gave him food. Never took him outside or bothered to say 'good morning.' Instead, when he finally found the motivation, he fled to the Yamamoto residence, knowing they would know what to do with a dejected child. And before he knew it, they were taking care of not only Tsuna, but also him. He didn't realize it at the time, but he found out later, when—

When…

* * *

"Take one step away from me, and I will make you so bald you'll wish you'd never been born."

It's a threat that's more of a promise, so Tsuna and Takeshi huddle together and cling to his shadow. The car's behind them now, having no more use to Reborn now that they've arrived at the place the cold summer wind has led them. He questions his decision to bring them, but it's too late now.

The night is cold and unforgiving as he glides through the night market. He doesn't know what pulled him here. The lights are warm and the voices soft, but there's something off. It's the smell of lavender that catches his attention, and he stops sharply, feeling Tsuna and Takeshi buckle into his knees.

The scent comes from the adjacent alley, which is dimly lit and is decorated with Christmas lights. There's no sign of abnormality—just that damned odor of lavender. Lavender, which the neighbors had recently begun growing…

One hand reaches for his gun as the other signals for Tsuna and Takeshi to stay back. Of course, they don't understand mafia signs, so they bumble after him like fools. It's fine. They'll be fine. He's the world's strongest hitman.

He earned that title.

The scent grows stronger and stronger further into the alley. He uses the light from his phone to scope out the path. There's nothing to be seen, nothing until he hits a dead end, on the wall of which is a red arrow pointing right to a rusted, metal door.

It's too inviting to be a trap, so Reborn opens the unlocked door easily.

Inside is just a vast expanse of darkness so saturated with night that it almost catches Reborn off-guard. _Almost_ , because he is the world's greatest assassin. But from the whimpers behind him, he knows that this type of night is like a monster. He orders them to stay outside, rethinks his decision— _after all, it wasn't too long ago that Takeshi had been injured—_ and promises to pull out every eyelash if they don't keep within a foot of him.

One hand hovering around their heads, and the other casually resting on the gun in his belt, Reborn moves forward. There's a pinprick of light at the other end of the stretch of night, like a sickly lighthouse that would love nothing more than to collapse into the sea.

There, they find another door, where the stench of lavender is absolutely incapacitating. Gun drawn, Reborn covers his nose with an arm and kicks the door open.

A rod of light pierces the room diagonally, illuminating small, papery objects fluttering from the ceiling. They glow white in the light, then vanish, like short-lived snowflakes. Reborn's nose wrinkles. He hates theatrics like this. But this also means—

Then he sees it, at the back of the room, under a second spotlight that has been dimmed so no attention is drawn away from the diagonal light. An instinct up until then foreign to him surges up, and he grabs a hold of Takeshi and Tsuna's heads and pushes them into his side.

"You don't need to see this," he says quietly.

There's no danger here. He tucks away his gun and calls for backup. He guesses he must not have been fast enough in his actions, because he can feel Takeshi shuddering under his hold. Heaving. Sobbing. A chill descends across his countenance, and the line of his shoulders harden.

He desperately wants to extricate himself from the arms wrapped around his leg but decides that so long as the boy doesn't vomit on his clothes, Reborn will tolerate this.

His eyes turn from the crying boy and to the second spool of light. Seeing it leaves a sour feeling in the center of his chest and brings back memories of a night lit by moon.

 _Make it art._

The words ring in his ears like the obstinate phantom of a mosquito killed long ago.

Suspended on strings of varying lengths from the ceiling are wreaths of lavender. They all fall within the column of light, like it's a vial preserving some sort of specimen floating in yellow liquid.

 _Make_

Under all the hanging nonsense, there is a single chair, which is more of a bed of lavender. They say you habituate to the environment, but the odor is still so sickening that Reborn wants to set fire to the place.

 _It_

He grits his teeth, but those words still pinwheel in his mind. He hates it. He hates those words more than he hates children.

 _Art_

Cumin bursts into the room, waving his flashlight around wildly. Reborn's lip curls; had he and Iemitsu been on better terms, he would have had a few words about his training. Behind him trail Cinnamon and Oregano and one person he didn't think he would see here in Japan.

"Situation?" a brusque female voice demands. She at least has sense not to barrel in with guns blazing, instead sticking surreptitiously to the shadows.

"As you see it, Lal Mirch," Reborn responds. He pushes Takeshi and Tsuna over to Oregano, who looks completely at a loss, juggling two crying children in her hands.

Lal Mirch looks grim as she throws her cloak over the kids' heads.

"Take them out. They don't need to see this."

Oregano hastens to the door, and Lal Mirch turns around. Reborn watches as her eyes sweep across the room, listening to the vague dispute over which button is the one that will light the place up.

"Done in poor taste," is all she says about the hanging flowers. She makes no commentary about the setup in the back.

"Stop dicking around over there," she barks out at Cumin and Cinnamon, who jump guiltily and point the flashlights in Lal's direction. "And go get—"

Her strong voice falters.

"—get Yamamoto."

Cumin gulps. "Is he aliv—?"

"If you ask seriously need to ask that question," Reborn says acidly, "Then your head doesn't deserve to rest on that brutish body of yours. Get him and get out of here before the cops get here. You'll need to inspect his body before they can, and then put him somewhere he'll be found. Is this understood?"

As the two fools busy themselves, Lal and Reborn walk to the door, steps slow and deliberate.

"Did they see?"

"Does it matter?"

" _Does it matter?"_ Lal echoes Reborn heatedly.

"I didn't think you to be someone who'd care."

Lal snarls at him. Unlike Cumin, he knows she has no reservations from attacking him. It's no secret that she can openly despise him, and she has more than one reason to.

"They did," Reborn says shortly. "And I tried, before you jump on me. But even one glance is enough. It doesn't take a genius to see that he's dead."

They ring in the air with a sour aftertaste, those words do.

That, sitting, slumped, in the lavender-smothered chair with a sprig of the flower itself in a hand, Yamamoto Tsuyoshi is unmistakably dead.

"They made it into quite a spectacle," he adds, gesturing at the lavender. "An elaborate display of ar—"

" _Art_?" she seethes. "Were you really about to say that, Reborn? In front of the dead, are you actually doing this?"

Reborn faces her, eyes hard chips of ice in a face of stone.

"The dead are the dead. They don't know anything."

He sees her punch coming a mile away. But he doesn't dodge it.

* * *

Two days later, after a clamor in the local newspaper about Tsuyoshi's death and a horde or reporters swarming the restaurant filled with consolatory flowers and notes, Reborn and Lal find themselves clothed in black and waiting in Reborn's room. The curtains are drawn, allowing solemn sunlight, which doesn't dare try to reach out warm hands of compassion, to shy inside.

Reborn meticulously cleans a gun, and Lal stands at the open window with her hands behind her back, sealed lips hiding an order from the Ninth.

"The fool died without his sword in his hand," Reborn says abruptly.

"He wasn't a fool," Lal returns.

"An assassin should never be without his weapon."

"He wasn't an assassin. Hadn't been in years."

"He was a fool to think himself safe just because he'd put down the sword. Once you've stepped into the Mafia, you're never safe.

Lal turns around finally and pins a glare on Reborn, who's unperturbed.

"I hate it when you act like this, Reborn," she says irritably. "Whenever someone you know dies, it's always their fault. You act like they're all fools for getting killed—"

"And they are," Reborn says. "Only fools die."

Lal grabs Reborn by the front of his collar and drags him so close that he can see every detail of the scar covering the right side of her face.

"Only fools die?" she hisses. "And what about Colonnello? Was he a fool, too, then, for trying to save all of us?"

"He was trying to save _you_ ," Reborn corrects. "And fool though he may be, he's only in a coma."

Lal looks like she wants to punch him.

"That's what you said, even when you were standing in front of his hospital bed," she says disgustedly. " _Only trying to save you, Lal. Me? I'm a big-shot assassin, people don't save my ass, I save theirs. Colonnello was an idiot for thinking we needed his help. That's why he's like this._ "

"Paraphrasing, but the general idea is correct."

Overcome by anger, Lal slams her fist into Reborn's desk so hard that it cracks. He moves his gaze coldly from her hand to her face.

And then she says in a low voice, "And _Luce?_ "

He doesn't say anything, his lips pressing into a tight, white line as his eyes send the silent threat of death by defenestration.

"You may be respected in the mafia world," Lal snarls in his face. "But you're not loved."

"I don't need to be," he replies frigidly. "And I don't want to be. I've seen what it can do to people."

He looks pointedly at her, at the scar on her face. He can see her expression morph into one of pure hatred. She knows he's referring to Colonnello, whom she loved and who loved her. Who would have died for her. Who almost did. She knows he's referring to Luce, who loved everyone and died for them. With one last snarl, she moves back. A few breaths later, she glowers levelly at Reborn.

"The Ninth wants to push your assignment up. This weekend, you'll move with members of the Cavallone family to take down the Ciro family. In the meantime, CEDEF and the Vongola will do its best to analyze Tsuyoshi's death, his killer's motive, and whether this was an order or just a random act of chaos."

Having delivered the news, she stares hard at Reborn, who returns it unflinchingly. Finally, she says, "Tsuyoshi was a good man. And he was no fool. You and I both know that. Get off your high horse and mourn properly for once, you idiot. I know you want to."

She makes for the door, and just before she slams it shut, she throws, "After all, you're only human. Like the rest of us."

Outside, she sees the Yamamoto boy and the son of the head of CEDEF curled up next to each other against the wall. She doesn't know if they'd heard the conversation and hopes they didn't. Lal might have an abrasive personality, but she at least had more tact and compassion than Reborn.

She kneels down and puts a hand on the Yamamoto boy's head.

"You're Takeshi, right?"

Her words are stilted because she's never the one to give out kind words. Those things are better suited for Luce. Yes, Luce would know what to do in this situation. Just being here would give the children some comfort. Luce is warm like the sun and has the embrace of a blue sky.

 _Was warm._

 _Had the embrace._

She pushes on because she knows they'll never get anything out of Reborn.

"How are you doing?"

Yamamoto puts on a smile that nearly breaks her heart. It's one of those smiles Colonnello had given her just before he'd slipped into his coma. One of those _I'll be fine, but not really_ smiles that she so hated. Maybe he was fine. She didn't actually know. Did kids his age understand death?

"You'll be alright," she says. "Don't listen to what Reborn says if he says anything dumb to you. He hasn't, has he? A friend of your father has made arrangements for you to stay at an orphanage. Is that okay with you?"

With a vague smile, Yamamoto stares at her for a bit, but he's not really looking at her. It's almost unnerving.

"I guess this means dad will have a skull and crossbones next to his name from now on."

Shocked, Lal can't find the words to say, but the boy is already moving on, smile wide and agreeably saying he's fine with moving to the orphanage. Lal doesn't want to deal with this for any longer than she has to, so she pretends she didn't hear anything and instead turns to the Sawada kid, who's watching her with eyes she can't quite read.

"And you're Sawada, right? Is Reborn giving you trouble?"

Tsuna shakes his head, but somehow she doubts him.

"There's a kid I know who'd be willing to look after you if you don't like this place. His name's Basil," she says. "He's nice, though a bit… eccentric. If you ever want to leave, just give me a call, and I'll set you two up."

She shoves a slip of paper into Tsuna's hand.

"I'll see you at the funeral," she says, wincing at the crassness of her words. "Take care."

Tsuna watches this lady leave. He doesn't even know her name, but he knows to fear her. She moves with a brusqueness and speaks words she seems unfamiliar with. But fear doesn't equate to distrust; on the contrary, he thinks he can trust her. Just like he knows he can trust Reborn.

He holds out a hand to Yamamoto. It's time to go.

* * *

The eulogist promised that Tsuyoshi would be remembered in the hearts of many. But every heartbeat told Reborn that people were going to forget.

As soon as they laid their flower down— _as what sort of symbol? What does covering the dead with flowers do? Pointless, all of it—_ Reborn could see them forgetting. People always forget the dead, the ones who didn't have trumpets and horns to champion their heroisms. They might turn away with tears now, but give them a few days, a few months, a few years and they will barely remember the name of the owner of TakeSushi who'd thrown away the lucrative career of assassin to exist as a father for his son. And soon, all that will remain after a hundred years is this silly little grave marker and dust of bones.

He doesn't like how that sounds.

It makes him…

He doesn't know what it makes him.

All he knows is that below his feet is Yamamoto Tsuyoshi, who would now never say hitting Reborn with mud will earn Takeshi a haircut or shout that his son is number one at the baseball field or even just—

Just one day, with his son, share sake under the moon.

Reborn wonders if he will forget those words Tsuyoshi had told him, what he had given him. Wonders how long it would be before vines grow over this tomb and ravage the gravestone and cover the ground.

 _Every heartbeat reminds him how easily people forget. How easily_ he _might forget._

Tsuyoshi had walked this earth, and all that is left behind of him now are his fading footsteps.

Reborn doesn't know how he feels about that.

* * *

Tsuna wonders what Reborn is thinking about as he stares at Tsuyoshi's grave.

 _(It's better than thinking about how Tsuyoshi is dead)_

Reborn's face is carefully blank, as it is most of the time. It's something Tsuna finds scary about Reborn. Though he's young and relatively new to the world, he can't find it in himself to be completely comfortable around people whose faces are like masks. One emotion, one expression, one state of mind and being. It's all so strange to him.

 _(Tsuyoshi was never like that)_

He wants to say something to Yamamoto, who's taken to arranging and rearranging the flowers laying on the mound of earth, but he was never any good with words. He was never any good at anything.

 _(Tsuyoshi tells him—used to tell him that wasn't true. He tell—told him he was good at understanding people and being kind)_

He takes a few timid steps forward until he's standing a breath behind Reborn. Reborn's hands hang at his side, open and empty, which is somehow a little odd to Tsuna. They aren't just empty—they're _empty._ Like they once had something, and now they don't.

It makes him a little sadder on this already dreary, weary day, and without really thinking about what he's doing, Tsuna puts his small hand in Reborn's large one and squeezes.

When Reborn looks down at him, terror runs through him and he almost— _almost_ —tugs his hand away. But there's a surprising light in Reborn's eyes that stops him in his tracks, and for a moment, they look at each other like this, one from above and one from below.

And then, very quietly, Reborn asks, "Are you going to forget him, too?"

And in that instant, Tsuna thinks he understands Reborn a little more, understands why his hands look so empty in the wake of Tsuyoshi's death. He understands because he's felt it himself so often. Scared that what he's been given, miraculously, will disappear like fireflies. Worried that Reborn will leave. Terrified Yamamoto will leave. Devastated that Tsuyoshi has left.

Tsuna has realized, over the years— _and he is older than they think he is—_ ,that when people leave, you have to walk along a long stretch of sand and pick out the glimmering memories they've left behind. You'd retrace your footsteps a hundred times because those shards of glass are all you have left. But time will pass, and the waves will wash them out to sea, and you'll slowly forget what you had. The happiness, the laughter, the sense of family or friendship.

It is one of the loneliest feelings in the world, running across that bleached sand and watching those pieces being swept away.

Knowing you what you'd had, but forgetting what it felt like.

To Tsuna and Reborn both, Tsuyoshi had given the sense of family, and, for Tsuna at least, the fear of losing and, moreover, _forgetting_ that sensation penetrated him to the core.

He has already forgotten what it was like to have a mother.

He had been forgetting what it had been like to have a father until Tsuyoshi came along and showed him the way.

He'd forgotten what a real family— _not the day-to-day existence he'd led in the daycare or the orphanage—_ had felt like until Tsuyoshi and Takeshi shone on his life like the warmest of suns.

And he—

He really doesn't want to forget again.

The way Tsuyoshi smiled at him, like he was saying _Hey! You belong here. I love you like I love Takeshi and Reborn._ The way Tsuyoshi rubbed his hair like he was saying _I'm proud of you._ The way Tsuyoshi fed him too much and was too kind and paid attention to Reborn even when the colder man thought nobody was looking and tucked them in—even Reborn—at night when they slept over and unconditionally, resolutely loved them—

Tsuna grips Reborn's hand like it's the string of a balloon about to be whipped away by the wind and balls his other hand tight, tighter than the knot raveling up in his chest.

"I don't… I don't want to forget."

A hiccup escapes him.

Tsuna begins to cry.

 _(But how much worse is it for Yamamoto?)_

* * *

 _What have I done_

 _Just kidding, I know exactly what I did. Because I've been planning this moment ever since Tsuyoshi was put into the story._

 _Don't hate me pls i love u all_

 _I'm a little nervous posting this. The story up to now has mainly been 'humor' (hopefully it's funny -dead-), so I'm not sure how this chapter will be received. Walp._

 _Thanks for all the support. Really puts a (creepy) smile on my face._


	7. stumbling forward

**F:CV | stumbling forward**

Reborn hasn't always been this way.

Lal remembers a time when he was kinder, lighter-hearted. When he even smiled, _really_ smiled. And, as bizarre as it seems, when he _laughed_.

 _It wasn't a big or noisy laugh; it was one of those laughs you saw rather than heard. As much as Skull claimed to hate Reborn, Lal knew Skull was always looking for that laugh. It just made their group that much more complete. That much more together._

 _That much more precious._

Lal looks up at the stretch of building laid out before her. If the earth just tilted the wrong way, it could become a road to the sky. Made of glass and steel, worked by human hands, a path that leads straight to the heavens. A one-way avenue with no chance to get lost.

 _She wonders, sometimes, what life might be like if Luce were still around. If they hadn't decided to take that suicide mission with confident grins and arrogant attitudes. They were strong; they were said to be the strongest, but there was always someone stronger. And that was what had killed them—as individuals, as a group, as a future._

The doors sweep open for her, and she checks into her hotel room under Mira Nelo, a faux name made to deter anyone who might target her, though it has been a long time since one has been foolish enough to attempt an assassination. She's not like Reborn, who's indiscriminately killed many, thus birthing a new generation of avengers, or Skull, the resident brat. She's strong but keeps a low profile, and she kills anyone who compromises that.

Except for Luce. Luce had bigger plans for them all, until she died.

And it was after that that Reborn had changed.

No, that wasn't the right word for it. _Regressed_. He had regressed after Luce's death, after Colonnello had almost died. Lal still remembers how he had been the first day he'd arrived, stone-faced, cold, fireless. Without a single motive other than to complete every mission to the T, like a doll created to serve.

She passes by an open dining room, sees a table of five laughing at a sixth man with pudding all over his face.

 _She remembers a scene like that. It seems like decades ago, but it's really only been a few years. Reborn trips the waiter and causes him to spill chilled cucumber soup all over Skull, who whines and pouts but never dares raise a finger against Reborn, and then leaves the poor waiter a hefty tip of $1,000 for his pains._

She remembers the first time a smile graced his face; it was during a sparring session with her then-student Colonnello. The two fought like idiots who didn't want to stay in the world, and she watched them like a tether to an eagle to stop them from flying away.

At the start, their group was loose and flimsy. A breath of wind could have blown them to pieces. None of them particularly wanted to be there; nobody especially wanted to leave. Luce was the glue that held them together. Nobody could refuse her. She forced them to dinner. To the skating rink. To training fields. Until one by one, their personalities began to clash in a constructive manner and yielded the odd motely of geniuses that would emerge as a powerhouse in the mafia world.

 _She thinks she misses it sometimes._

"Hello, Lal," comes the greeting as she opens the door to her room.

There wasn't supposed to be anyone to meet her.

Lal hisses and moves to draw her gun, but it's too late; she had been careless during her reminiscence, and now she pays. Little arms crawl across her skin, an infinite number of robotic ropes binding her tight in that split second when half her mind was still walking down memory lane.

She snarls, not because she is frightened, and only half because she is irritated at herself for letting her guard down. The other half is because she dislikes this man that stands in front of her for the things he does and the way he acts—especially when he conducts himself in this manner. She stops struggling against the machines because she knows it's impossible to escape anyways. Better to give this man what he wants and get rid of him quickly.

With a furious gaze, she growls out, "Release me, Verde, or you'll never get what you want."

"On the contrary, even if you die, I think I will get everything I want," Verde returns, stepping out of the shadows like the melodramatic wannabe villain he so is. Lal shakes her head; she shouldn't be spiteful just because of a few things Verde said years ago. She knows he has no inclination towards being hero or villain; all he wants is the world and time to himself to further his scientific explorations. "You are merely… a shortcut. A liaison to my most recent interest."

Lal glares at him pointedly until he sighs and claps his hands. She's dropped to the ground gracelessly, much like a rag doll. As she gets to her feet, she thinks that's probably all she is to Verde anyways—a doll, like all other humans, serving no other purpose than to satisfy him.

She acquiesces because he is an old comrade.

"You weren't at the funeral," she says.

"What funeral?" Verde responds. She feels another surge of anger, but she quells it. "Oh, you mean the one for the sushi-maker? I felt it was unnecessary to attend. But onto more pressing matters—"

"And what makes you think I'll help an asshole like you?" Lal breathes.

Verde turns a very poignant eye on her, like she is some sort of bug beneath him.

"Because I will help you in return."

* * *

"You're late."

Reborn addresses the long braid travelling down the back of the man standing in front of Tsuyoshi's grave. The owner shrugs a little, like he could whisk up an apology but doesn't really see the point in it, which Reborn appreciates. He doesn't like superficialities.

"I'm late," the man echoes. "And I'm sorry to be. And the others…?"

Reborn shoves his hands in his pockets and moves up so that he's standing next to the other man.

"Lal was here."

"Of course."

"I saw Viper's footprints. He didn't bother hiding them, so he must have wanted someone to know he'd dropped by. No trace of Verde to be seen."

"And Skull?"

Reborn looks the other dryly in the eye.

"He hasn't been heard from for years. You should know. You're the one who paid Viper a fortune to track him down, Fon."

Fon chuckles, folding his arms.

"Indeed I am. Quite a disappointment, really. I had to sell my house to foot the bill. You'd think that after being comrades for so long Viper would offer a discount. But it's good that he stopped by," he finishes softly. "Tsuyoshi would have been glad."

Fon's fingertips brush the still-shining stone with the delicateness of a butterfly.

"You will be missed."

They fall in step with each other as they walk from the grave, Fon musing over something otherworldly, Reborn with his eyes fixed on something distant visible to no one else.

"What of his son?" Fon says when the time is right. Reborn shrugs.

"He'll go to an orphanage fifteen miles away. He'll switch schools and stay in his baseball club and see a private psychiatrist for a couple of weeks or until necessary. There'll be guards around the orphanage and his school at all times of the day, and the Ninth will ensure he gets everything he needs until he's able to provide for himself."

"And what of you?"

"What _of_ me?" Reborn says, and he realizes he has said it with a sharper edge than intended. He can see the smile on Fon's face and wants to shoot the braided martial-arts maniac in the foot.

He hates that melodramatic tinge on his lips.

"You were closer to him than any of us were," Fon says. "Are you feeling alrigh—"

"I," Reborn interrupts very flatly, "am fine. Now, did you come here for a reason, or is your sole purpose to be a needle in my side?"

Fon spreads his hands a little helplessly, like there's a lot more he would like to say, and the breeze catches his hair, tossing it like the grass blades below. With his clothes flapping around him, Fon looks like at any moment he could just leap into the air and be swept away.

Reborn hates how it makes him look so free.

"Namimori is a town of wind," Fon says, and Reborn has to fight the urge to roll his eyes. Here comes another cryptic spiel. "You must be careful, Reborn. In times like these, sparks are waiting to fly. And since the rain is gone, fire might easily consume this town."

"Are you done waxing poetry?" Reborn asks sardonically. Fon just gives him a gentle smile.

"I am. You should try it once, Reborn. It soothes the soul."

"And irritates the souls of others," Reborn mutters under his breath. "I suppose that now you're in Japan, you'll be stalking that cousin of yours?"

"Stalking is a strong word," Fon says mildly. "But yes, I will check in on him briefly before flying out to China. Oh, and—Colonnello's birthday is coming up. Will you visit?"

Reborn says nothing, but he suspects Fon expected that, for he fluidly follows up with, "Lal mentioned something about you being… ah, a 'donkey with a stick stuck up its ass.'"

Reborn snorts through his nose.

"When have I ever not been?"

"You've had your moments," Fon says with a shadow of a laugh in his voice. "Look, you're having one now."

Reborn's eyebrow twitches in question. Fon's lips spread wide.

"Such a donkey described by Lal would never bother to visit the resting spots of the dead."

And as Fon walks away with a melodic laugh, Reborn has to stop and really think about what he just said. He's had many solo missions and many partner missions, and it strikes him that, up until now, barring Luce's death, he's never bothered to attend a single funeral.

A crazy laugh bubbles up inside him, dark and bitter, and he turns his fedora down and shoves his hands deep in his pockets.

 _See, Tsuyoshi, see what you've done? See what you've changed? See how broken it is without you?_

Reborn thinks this is the most poetic he's ever been, but Fon is a liar. It doesn't make him feel any better. It makes him want to rip his fedora in two, turn the world over, and set fire to hell itself.

But he turns on his heel and heads home, because assassins shouldn't entertain those sorts of emotions.

* * *

When Reborn returns to his apartment, it's to the sight of something underneath a miserable blanket of crumpled old newspapers. He knows who it is immediately—only one person could be dumb enough to do something like this, and only one person would have the free time to do something like this.

"What are _you_ doing here, Dino Cavallone?" he says in fluid Italian.

The newspapers move and out from underneath emerges a boy with blond, wild hair and brown eyes, disoriented and sheepish.

"H-Hi, Reborn," he says, laughing a little nervously. "I-I guess you didn't expect to see me here."

"No," Reborn says. "No, I didn't. The Ninth did mention you would come around sometime—but I hadn't presumed it would be under guise of a—"

He looks distastefully at the pile of newspapers arranged haphazardly over Dino.

"—a homeless bum."

"H-Hey, not all homeless people are bums," Dino says weakly, but he scrambles out from his makeshift blanket and tries to arrange himself in a presentable manner. And, being Dino Cavallone, the laughingstock of the mafia, he somehow manages to pull his pants down and jab himself in the eye all at the same time.

All just by pulling newspapers off of himself.

"…Put your pants back on," Reborn says tiredly. He turns to open the door when it strikes him what Lal had said a few days ago, that someone from the Cavallone family would be coming to aid him on the mission.

His heart sinks as he turns very, very slowly to look at Dino.

"It's not _you_ , is it?" he says almost despairingly. Like his life will end if it turns out that some higher up, who clearly didn't have his or her head screwed on correctly, had presumed _Dino,_ of all people, is qualified to be considered reinforcement.

"What's not me?" Dino asks. He looks up at Reborn, giving him a good look of his face.

Cavallone Dino isn't someone Reborn particularly likes, but he doesn't particularly hate him either.

The boy is so much like a prematurely-born horse foal that you can't help but pity him. Reborn had always thought that 'tripping over your own shadow' was just a hyperbole used to describe mildly clumsy people—until he met Dino, who literally always tripped over his own shadow.

Reborn puts up with him because he's fun to bully.

But it never is as fun seeing someone else bullying Dino.

"I think there's something to be said when the heir to the Cavallone Family gets beaten up the moment he sets foot in Japan," he says, looking pointedly at the bruised eye and split lip Dino sports.

Dino has the courage to look sullen in front of Reborn and says, "The Ninth did ask you to train me."

"I don't think _any_ amount of training can help you. And, kids don't just beat other kids up for no reason. What did you do?"

"When your name is Dino Cavallone," Dino says glumly, "yeah, they do. And they weren't all kids. And I tried to tell them I was going to become a boss of a fearsome mafia family, but they don't know Italian, so I don't think I got across to them."

He tries to kick the carpet ruefully, but it ends up almost knocking his front teeth out. The _carpet_ almost knocks his front teeth out, for mafia's sake.

"Well, if you're not here for the mission, then are you here to take Sawada Tsunayoshi off my hands?" he says (hopefully).

"Who?"

He's sorely tempted to whack Dino across the head, but out of the kindness of his heart, he refrains.

"If you're not here to help me, then what _are_ you good for in life?" he mutters.

Dino winces and carefully looks away. Interesting. He peers at him like Dino's a spectacular specimen of lizard, and Dino twists his face away with superhuman skills like he's been training to do that all his life. He puts together the fact that Dino has arrived quite literally on his doorstep purportedly without direction and that Dino is being more sensitive than usual about his haplessness levels and then says, "Ho. Your family kicked you out."

Dino is the intended heir to the Cavallone Family, but if he can't stand up to bullies or walk in a straight line, he may as well be dead to them.

And then to Reborn's complete and utter bewilderment, Dino drops everything and begins to bawl.

* * *

"You'll… keep in touch, right?"

Yamamoto says it hesitantly, and Tsuna wants to latch onto his arm and never let go. He can already feel his heart breaking at the prospect of not being able to see his friend daily; they won't even be going to the same school. The orphanage Yamamoto is being sent to is well within a different school district—Kokuyo, they call it—and it suddenly strikes Tsuna that this could be the last time they ever, _ever_ see each other.

"T-Tsuna, don't cry!"

"Why are children always _crying?_ " comes an exasperated voice from above. Yamamoto looks up. Is Reborn carrying a sack of potatoes? Oh, no, he was mistaken. It was a boy dressed in brown, _looking_ like a miserable sack of potatoes hanging from Reborn's outstretched arm.

"Did you punch him?" Reborn accuses of Yamamoto, who shakes his head violently. "Well, then, why is he _crying?"_ And then, in Italian, Reborn says through gritted teeth, " _And_ wipe _your nose, Dino, you disgusting little boy—for mafia's sake, not on_ me _._ "

Seeing that Yamamoto is packed, Reborn looks down his nose severely at Tsuna, who's still blubbering away, which is making _Dino_ teary-eyed, and mafia help him, if Yamamoto starts crying, too—

And he does.

Very loudly, like he hasn't wept in years.

 _(Reborn realizes that he hadn't cried even at his father's funeral)_

And there Reborn stands, in the center of a triangle comprised of three bawling children, entertaining a headache and sorely wanting to shoot himself dead.

"I don't _want_ Yamamoto-kun to leave!"

 _"I can't believe my family threw me out…"_

"What's going to happen to me?"

"Stop, _stop_ ," Reborn demands irritably, but they pay him no heed. He has to wait it out—and wait he does, for a long, long time. By the time the raucous has settled down, it's lunchtime, and far past the hour at which he was supposed to deliver Yamamoto.

"Look," he says very frankly as he passes out tissues so that they may spare his floor from their disgusting snot. "Takeshi isn't dead."

 _Too soon,_ something tells him as Tsuna and Yamamoto's eyes begin to well up with tears. Before another symphony of honking and wailing can begin, he says very sternly, "He's moving _fifteen miles away_ , which means that we can see him whenever you want to. _Whenever_ you want to, so long as it _stops your infernal crying._ "

Tsuna hiccups. Reborn wants to punch the wall.

"My assignment is this weekend, and it may well extend to a week, and I will send you over to where Takeshi is during that time. So, you'll have, potentially, an _entire_ week to spend with this… thing you're so infatuated with."

"What's infatuated mean?" Yamamoto hiccups.

"Nothing," Reborn elucidates very kindly. He rounds on Yamamoto and tells him, "Nothing is going to _happen_ to you, you little twat. There'll be people there who will look over you, and if worst comes to worst, you just take whatever's closest and hurl it at the people you don't like. See? Nothing to cry about. And you—" he says, grabbing a hold of Dino's ear. " _If you weren't so useless at everything, your family wouldn't have thrown you out_."

 _"I wouldn't be so useless at everything if you'd agreed to mentor me!"_ Dino can't help but blurt out petulantly. He seems to regret it as soon as the words leave his mouth.

" _No, you would not._ _Your sort of disease is incurable by anybody but yourself._ Enough. If I hear one more sniffle, see one more tear, I will—"

 _Shoot everyone here,_ he wants to say, but that's hardly child appropriate.

His voice trails off into an indecipherable grumble, and he turns away to carefully count to ten and _not_ break the window. If Tsuyoshi were here—

 _No._

"Get in the car, baseball terror," Reborn says tiredly. "All of you, in the car. _Dino, in the car. And learn Japanese, won't you? It'll make my life so much easier._ "

 _(He won't have anyone else dying—)_

" _Huh_?"

 _"Close your mouth before I close it for you."_

As they pile into the car, Reborn notices Tsuna eyeing the tires like he's thinking about slashing them, but before he can go any further, Reborn picks him up by the scruff of the neck and _looks_ at him. Tsuna whimpers and, thoroughly satisfied, Reborn tosses him onto Dino's lap and shuts the door on them.

He takes a moment to breathe.

It's not the end of Yamamoto Takeshi. They will still be able to see him. Reborn will check up on him and make sure the guards are doing their job—and if they aren't, there's one happy gun, one hungry chameleon, and one battle-ready stag beetle waiting for them. Tsuyoshi's son won't be harmed. Tsuyoshi's son will grow up a baseball fanatic and do whatever the hell he wants to.

And—

Reborn snaps out of it. Just who is he trying to reassure right now?

He's just—

—Just talking to himself.

He looks down at his hands like it's the first time he's seeing them. He's an assassin. He doesn't need reassurance. But Reborn's no fool.

He knows all these thoughts are because Tsuyoshi had gone and flipped his world upside down and left it all jumbled up.

He quietly turns the key in the engine and drives away, because assassins should move on.

* * *

In the southernmost part of Japan, there's a child in chains.

He's a spiteful child, but he hasn't always been that way. He thinks his hatred for mankind began when his freedom was taken away, when the experiments begun, when the pain became too much to bear. When he was younger— _and he is already too young—_ he loved chasing butterflies and fireflies and beautiful things. And now, he is the butterfly or firefly, being chased.

His chains rattle as he draws circles in his bed.

They call him Number 69, but his name is Rukudo Mukuro, or he thinks so anyways. He remembers it to be the last thing his parents shout at him before they were blasted to smithereens. Needless to say, memories of that day aren't visited often, so he can't be positive. But because his name is the only part of him that he owns, he clings to it like he clings to the light in his nightmares.

 _"Number 69. It's time."_

The scientist calls to him in Italian, which he's picked up over the years since it's all they speak here. His fingers are shaking, but he stands resolutely, a defiant look on his face as he's led away.

But as they travel through the hallway, something crashes in the far distance, rocking the ground. Bits of the ceiling rain down on them, and people are shouting— _An attack_ , they're screaming. _Run for cover!_ His heart leaps in his chest.

The ceiling collapses, killing the man beside him and leaving him alone in the shaking hall. This would be his chance to escape—but he's still chained, and he won't be able to run very far. He struggles in vain to break his bonds and then—

Something warm falls from the sky, almost crushing him.

 _"Oh, I'm so dead… Reborn's gonna kill me; I'm so_ dead!"

Rokudo Mukuro struggles to sit up, and he finds himself staring into a pair of very frightened brown eyes belonging to a blond boy who must be no older than himself. Blood runs down his head, and his fingers tremble around a sleek, black gun.

"H-Hi," the dumb blond boy stutters in a horrible accent. "I—Japanese no."

He makes flapping motions with his arms that makes Mukuro want to take a fork and put it through his eye.

" _I speak Italian,_ " he says rather snidely.

 _"Oh thank the lord,_ " the blond boy cries, grabbing Mukuro's hand. _"I've screwed up so bad, do you know where we are, can we get out, or—or are you a prisoner, which means you don't know how to get out and so I'm screwed oh,_ oh _, Reborn is going to kill me,_ oh GOD—"

The rest of the ceiling crumbles, and he has barely enough time to see the sky that he hasn't seen in years, and then Rokudo Mukuro knows no more.

* * *

 _…Hi. Hopefully people are still reading this lol. School and things. Health yadda yadda. Expect another long hiatus come January, but I think I'll be trying to do some more writing. Fanfiction and original. I didn't get to all the reviews for last chapter, but I read every single one (maybe more than once lol) and really appreciate them._

 _Action next chapter (hopefully)! Enough angsting over Tsuyoshi's death. Last scene will be explained in next chapter. Felt bad for just writing angsting, so put in some stuff_

 _Happy New Year/holidays_


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